Ethical clothing business has already defied the odds

From this week’s Galway City Tribune – March 12, 2020 was the date Stephen Cooke had picked to unveil Aplomb, Galway’s newest menswear store, which specialises in ethical and sustainable clothing, footwear and accessories.

The Kingston man was all set to publicly launch his life-long dream when disaster struck. A killer virus was spreading rapidly, and compelled government into taking unprecedented action by shutting down everything except ‘essential’ retail.

The best-laid plans, and all that . . .

On December 4, the first Friday after the country’s second lockdown, the 38-year-old finally did open his doors to customers, in time for the Christmas shopping rush.

“It couldn’t have gone better,” he said. “I was expecting just friends and family, but people were coming out of the woodwork they’d seen Aplomb bags up town, or through word of mouth.”

It was short lived, however. A third wave of virus meant non-essential retail was sacrificed again in another lockdown.

Stephen could have been forgiven for packing it in. But he persevered.

“I had to just sit tight and not go mental,” he recalled of the period shops were shuttered between New Year’s Day and last Monday, when Aplomb re-opened.

“I’m stubborn about things. I knew it could be something great; I still do. There’s definitely more potential. It was just another setback. The whole ‘tough times don’t last, tough people do’. I was determined. It was a goal of mine for so long, if I walked away, what would I do?”

Stephen readily admitted that he was “not particularly” good at Business Studies in Tom Fox’s class in secondary school in St Enda’s but “there’s a difference between learning business and being entrepreneurial”.
This is a shortened preview version of this article. To read the rest of the story, see this week’s Galway City Tribune. You can buy a digital edition HERE.