THE world famous Paisley Pattern keeps the town’s name at the forefront of fashion.
Now two businessmen who recently opened a retail unit in The Piazza shopping centre have joined the campaign to promote the town by adopting the slogan – ‘Paisley is…always in style’.
Buddies Gary Kerr and Tommy McGrory have set up a new company, Paisley From Paisley, selling only fashion items featuring the famous Paisley Pattern.
The ‘Paisley is…’ marketing initiative uses the letters ‘i’ and ‘s’ in the word Paisley to tee-up different positive messages about the town.
Gary Kerr, who runs the engineering asset management company EPM Solutions said: “The idea to sell only products that feature the Paisley Pattern stemmed from a conversation I had with the late Ellen Farmer, of the Old Paisley Society, a few years ago. “She had said there was no one place you could go to get Paisley Pattern products.
“The idea came up again recently when I was talking to Tommy about the town and he had similar thoughts. So, we decided to launch the retail unit selling only Paisley Pattern products.“
At the moment we’ve sourced ties, ladies and gents scarves, shawls and pashminas from some of the biggest names in traditional clothing accessories like Tootal and Michelsons.
“We’re planning to source more items that feature the Paisley Pattern like jewellery, shirts, bags and wallets. And we’re planning to also sell our products online – taking Paisley to the rest of the world!”
Gary added: “We’ve started the retailing side, but we also want to see Paisley Pattern products being manufactured in the town that we can sell. Hopefully our venture could even maybe spark a cottage industry in the area with people making products we can take to the public.”
Tommy, who runs the Loud ‘n’ Proud Music School added: “Despite what people may say, Paisley does have a lot going for it. “We have a great heritage that we can exploit to start new businesses – just like Gary and I have done.“We’re just one of several new businesses to start up in the town recently and there’s no doubt there a new-found optimism that we can successfully revitalise the town in many different ways.
“We’re happy to support the Paisley is… campaign because a great way to get a positive message out about the town.”
Local businesses, organisations and community groups are being given the chance to get involved in promoting Paisley by using the ‘Paisley is…’ logo with the strapline that’s most relevant to what they are doing on their letterheads and publicity material.
Paisley Vision Board, who is running the marketing campaign, will provide the artwork free of charge to anyone willing to use it. Chairman of the Paisley Vision Board, Renfrewshire Council leader Mark Macmillan said: “Gary and Tommy should be congratulated in seeing a gap in the ‘Paisley’ market and utilising our town’s great heritage to launch a new business venture in the town centre. “It shows that with the right idea to attract customers, you can set up a successful business in Paisley town centre.”
For ‘Paisley is…’ branding artwork, contact Amanda Moulson, of Renfrewshire Council by emailing her at amanda.moulson@renfrewshire.gov.uk .