Designer / Thom Neal

What were you doing before you formed Thom Neal?

I have done a bit of everything to be honest. I didn’t know what I wanted to do for ages and left school at 17, and went from hairdressing to shop work. I have worked in banking and as a caravan assistant fitter, all sorts, but nothing actually felt right and I didn’t have the passion for any of them, but eventually I fell into the right career path, though it took time.

Aside from designing, what other interest’s do you have?

I like everything really. Music and gigs are a big thing for me, but shopping, meals , cars, travelling to new cities … the theatre is really good too, all sorts, people seem to categorise you, just because you dress a certain way, but I like things that everyone else does.

What projects are you currently working on?

Well, at the moment I am working as an accessories designer for a few of the major high street brands, so that is taking up a lot of my time, but I have a few bespoke pieces In the pipeline too. Also, I am trying to work on the technical side of things a lot more now, as I think there is a real shortage of the technical skills in the UK. Developing skills into new areas.

Do you have anything exciting coming up in the near future in terms of development and expansion of Thom Neal?

I have got an online retailer in Japan trialling some limited edition pieces, going on sale in January. Along with some limited edition pieces coming to my website too. Then, I am currently developing the graduate collection – ready for sampling in January to look at retailing towards September/October 2012, all UK manufactured of course. So they are the next steps really, oh and my online shop will hopefully be up and running early next year too, its all just a time thing, so much to do, with not much time.

In your own opinion, what is unique about Thom Neal?

Although more and more people are catching onto the whole ‘Made in the United Kingdom’ thing, I still think Thom Neal, England has a design edge and it is important for me and these other small brands to keep going, to grow and develop to keep the British economy going and to promote British values and manufacturing. We have a lot of skill sets here that need utilising and promoting. My way of doing this is through Thom Neal, England.

In business terms, what advice would you give to aspiring designers?

It’s hard, very hard and tiring and some times you think is it worth it. But If you have the passion you will succeed and grow. The hardest thing is getting noticed and with bloggers such as yourself, I think it helps not only designers, but all artists become noticed. Promotion and marketing is definately an area where I am no expert, and will need to get some help – but at the end of the day, that costs money and when you are a one man band, with little funding, that isn’t always a viable option. The key thing to remember is research – who is your customer, who will you promote and sell too, which shop do you want to stock it, price ranges, market points, suppliers, fabrics, factories … the list is endless.

I think that we need to adapt a lot more as designers and not just be able to sketch. With all of the ‘behind the scenes’ jobs filling up and Universities failing to teach you half of the stuff – it’s not helping the future of the development and production side of things in the United Kingdom. With Universities not teaching it, you are required to teach yourself and go out and find the expertise from elsewhere. Internships are a good start, apprenticeships would be even better if there were any. But looking at garment technology, production and pattern cutting are all good areas to look at. They are all very important parts of the design process, yet we have very few courses that actually specialize in these areas. They’re areas that are over looked and we have far too many design graduates and not enough of these, so from my point of view, if you can master a specialism such as the above, then designing would come naturally and you would understand everything about the design and development process, rather than just the sketch on a piece of paper or a CAD you create.

Lastly, would you say that Thom Neal is successful?

It depends how or what you see as successful really, as I would still class it as ‘developing’. I think once the brand has developed a little, gone to retail and starts selling and getting seen – it will be a lot easier to gauge it from an outsiders point of view. It was hard to see how things would turn out 5 or 6 years ago, and if I am completely honest I probably didn’t see myself being where I am now, but my personal goals have been reached and exceeded, and the next set of goals have been set for the next chapter of Thom Neal, England.

Images courtesy of Thom Neal, England