Local Business Profile: The Label Men’s Wear

Names: Gary Winters and Stephen Moore
Business Name: The Label Men’s Fashion
Location: 16 Castle Street, Strabane

How long have you been in business? Five years.

How many staff do you employ? Three staff.

What are your strengths? Having the experience of the both of us, having almost 40 years working in this sector, meeting a lot of great people and personalities along the way, and always learning.

What are your weaknesses? Taking criticism to heart.

Has Covid-19 affected your business? We both think that being closed for 12 weeks has been a challenging time for a lot of businesses. We were lucky that our online business kept the two of us busy throughout. We have lost out on special occasions, weddings, communions etc. Let’s hope we all can get back to these occasions soon.

What makes your business unique? The years of experience we both have. I suppose it comes from both of us being ‘old school’ in our approach to our customers. We listen to what they want and we make them feel welcome as soon as they enter the shop.

What does your business mean to you? The business means everything us. We are fulfilling our dreams by having our own clothing store and after five years we still feel the same.

Aside from family and friends, who has been the greatest influence on your life? Our families have had a big influence on us from the word go, we wouldn’t be here without them. We both had big influences in the trade from a young age, especially Raymond Kirk, Colin McLaughlin and Jim Roulston. Learning from these men over the years has been invaluable to our business, and to where we are today.

Any advice for anyone starting out in your industry today? Don’t…LOL. Always be yourself, don’t take things personally, know your industry and most importantly try and enjoy it.

What are your plans for the future? We are always planning ahead and remain positive that we will all get through this as best we can. We will keep doing what we have been doing for the last five years. We have great support from our customers, for that we are always extremely grateful.

If you weren’t in this field of business, what would you be doing? We’ve both been doing this for so long we don’t know what else. It’s a bit like the film ‘The Shawshank Redemption’ we have been institutionalised at this stage!

What do you do to relax? We enjoy playing golf and fishing to unwind. 

What would you do if you won the lottery? Having a big party is out of the question at the minute but I’m sure when we get through this we would make up for it.

We might be limited in our travel at the moment but where is your favourite holiday destination? We both love getting to Portugal.

What do you miss most about Tyrone when you are away? Without any doubt it’s the people of Tyrone.

If you could swap lives with someone, who would you choose and why? Ant and Dec probably, so many of our customers refer to us as the funny duo.

And finally take the chance to give a shout out to another local business who you think is doing great things (expand on why you’ve chosen them)? We have great respect for all local businesses in the town, especially through these challenging times. Fingers crossed we all can get back to better times. Shop local.

If you would like your business profiled contact Terence on 028 7188 2100 or email advertising@strabanechronicle.com.