Golf clothing specialist drives change to hole bright future

FUTURE PROOF: Eurostyle: Calvin Klein is a fashion brand known on high streets all over the world. What might come as a surprise is that its golfwear range is designed in Cork by Eurostyle, the worldwide licensee for Calvin Klein golf.

Asked how a small Irish company landed such a high profile licence, MD Alan Dwyer says: “We were in the right place at the right time and made a good pitch. We have over 20 years’ experience designing and making men and women’s golfwear, and Klein wanted their range to have a look inspired by the countries they see as the home of golf – Ireland and the UK, especially Scotland. They also knew us as we had been their European licensee. It cost us nothing to take it on. The only ‘pain’ involved was a detailed audit.”

Dwyer says securing the licence has been a major catalyst for positive change within the company. It has provided an important new income stream, reduced dependence on sales to pro shops and opened worldwide business opportunities.

Asia market

Eurostyle recently signed a new Calvin Klein Golf licensee in Asia. This operator plans to open 100 stores in the region by the end of 2014.

Just how much the Calvin Klein deal is worth to Eurostyle’s bottom line Dwyer will not divulge for contractual reasons. However he concedes it could be significant.

“Like many Irish businesses that need cash to grow, we have struggled over the last few years because the banks have basically been closed for business,” he says. “Our overdraft was cut considerably and it became very clear that, starved of cash, we couldn’t grow our turnover in the normal way.

“We trimmed costs, restructured where we needed to, made some key appointments at managerial and agency level and pointed the company in a new direction with licencing income as a key pillar of our strategy. As a result of these changes, we are a stronger, more stable company very focused on what we want to achieve over the next three years.

“Our traditional business was selling wholesale to pro golf shops. In recent years we added two additional strands – licensing and internet sales and are looking at a third, retailing, most likely with a partner.

“The last few years have been tough for golf clubs in this region with courses closed due to summer flooding and bad winters. The option to have customers outside this climate zone is very positive.”

Tradition

The Dwyer family has been in clothing and footwear since 1820. Dwyer’s father, George, established Eurostyle in 1972 to manufacture shirts. By the late 1980s, however, the company was beginning to struggle against low cost competition and the family opened a golf shop in Cork to capitalise on the growing interest in the sport. They quickly discovered a big gap in the market for golfwear for women.

“Most of what was available then was men’s clothing in women’s sizes. We knew we could do a lot better and put our resources behind the development of a new ladies range which we called Green Lamb,” Dwyer says.

Green Lamb has been the largest selling brand in Ireland and the UK for some time and markets have also been developed in Europe, with an emphasis on Spain and Portugal.

Since the launch of Green Lamb, Eurostyle has been transformed from a shirtmaker to a golf clothing specialist. It also has a corporate gifts division and a commercial embroidery service.

In 2002 the company took on European distribution for the upmarket US golf clothing brand Cutter Buck (which doubled its turnover) and it also has the agency for Pukka headwear.

It makes private label clothing for golf clubs and, in 2009, it launched a range of golf trousers under the Dwyers brand.

The company employs 42 people and sells to many of Europe’s most prestigious golf clubs, including St Andrews, Val de Lobo in Portugal and Valderama in Spain.

When Green Lamb was launched, the clothing was made in Cork. However, local manufacturing was not sustainable in the long term, not least because the company was losing staff to new hi-tech industries (such as Apple) which offered shorter working hours and better wages. All of the clothing manufacture is now outsourced and locations changed to maintain competitive advantage.

“We use a lot of technical fabrics and the Taiwanese are specialists in this field,” Dwyer says. “We currently manufacture in Thailand, China and Vietnam but all of the design work takes place in Cork. On the Calvin Klein range we liaise closely with their design team in New York on seasonal colour trends for example.”

With the experience of working with Calvin Klein under its belt, Eurostyle has started remodelling Green Lamb into a lifestyle brand which it has licensed in Canada, the US, Australia and South Africa.

“We are now a diverse company developing five brands and only €3.5 million of our €10.5 million turnover is in Ireland. It’s been a challenging few years but we have a history of adapting to change. This is another chapter in that process,” Dwyer says.