Reputation for quality has kept tailor riding high in fashion world

In 2001, he set up a business designing, sourcing and subcontracting the manufacture of ladies’ tailoring for the high street.

In the years since, as the market has changed, Buxton Pickles has stuck to what Mr Pickles knows are its strengths.

“Reputation means an awful lot in our industry and it takes a while for a business to realise what it does best,” he said.

“We’ve had a couple of interesting ventures working with garment makers in China and in India, but there are lots of people in our industry who do that so we’re concentrating on Eastern European production with a factory in Bulgaria.

“The others tend to supply the volume end of the market. For us, it’s about quality.

“We’re not always choosing the cheapest factory or fabric or button.”

Those customers include big high street names such as Next, Hobbs, LK Bennett, French Connection and Whistles.

Mr Pickles also owns tailoring company Norton and Townsend, which has just two outlets in the UK – in Ilkley and Spitalfields, London – but does most of its work in people’s homes and offices.

Eight tailors work across the country for the brand, with clients in every major city.

Mr Pickles said the business is able to produce bespoke suits at prices which are much lower than many people expect because of the volume of work it does, allowing bulk orders of fabric to be made.

However, not all of Mr Pickles’s ventures have been successful.

He set up a men’s retail business, Charcoal and Chalk, with outlets in York and London, and invested heavily in them. What should have been a successful new project fell apart simply through bad timing.

He said: “We were doing really well up to 2008 when Lehman Brothers went bust. Before that, we had two venture capital firms interested in us.

“But then in October 2008 we just saw things dry up overnight. We looked at the turnover in the shop, which had gone down massively, and we ended up closing because there was no end in sight.

“We had made a massive investment and we wanted to make it a success.

“If the market had stayed the same, it would have been fine.”

With things now back on track, Buxton Pickles achieved a turnover of £6.2m in 2011 and Mr Pickles bought premises in Ilkley last June, meaning the business no longer pays rent.

At the time, he was off work for four months while he underwent treatment for cancer, but said that only made him more determined to enjoy himself when he got back to the business.

As someone who recognises that he needs to be excited by what he’s doing, and who says that if you’re not enjoying your job, you should be doing something else, Mr Pickles decided to launch a new venture he had been considering for some time.

Called Johnny Tuxedo, it specialises in producing affordable dinner suits for men aged between 16 and 25.

He believes the business caters for a need which so far nobody else has recognised.

While young men can rent a suit for around £60, as soon as they need to hire one for a second time, they will have paid more than the £99 Mr Pickles will charge for them to buy a Johnny Tuxedo product.

The target demographic is one he’s looking forward to working with.

“Johnny Tuxedo has a personality now and it’s also a market you can have quite a lot of fun with,” he said.

“You can see that customer, have fun with him, give advice on the internet, smarten him up.”

Mr Pickles believes he has learned valuable lessons from Charcoal and Chalk which will help him make the Johnny Tuxedo more successful.

“We made a list of the business people we wanted to work with – all experts in their fields – and they’re all on board.

“We’ve got people looking after graphics, PR, photography, the website, but the key thing is that all of them have got a stake in the business to try to drive it forward,” he said.

“Getting the very best people costs a lot of money.

“It’s very easy to go out and invest £150,000 in websites and design.

“Instead, we’re all working hard for our shares.

“Eventually, I think we’ll end up with the very best brand we can.”