Wm Sugden: ‘We’ve been making garments and uniforms for everyday heroes in Yorkshire for more than 150 years’
What started off as one sewing machine, Wm Sugden has grown over the last 150 years into a business making garments and uniforms for everyday heroes in Yorkshire.
Wm Sugdens started off with one sewing machine in 1869 before the founder, William Sugden, moved it to a factory at Water Lane Mills in Cleckheaton.
The family-owned business, now run by third generation Sugdens, has evolved to produce workwear uniforms and garments.
It has expanded and now has a branch in Wakefield, where head of marketing at Wm Sugdens, Noreen Allen, has been working for two years.
“It is crazy when you think about it now,” Ms Allen said.
“We’ve got some amazing photographs across our buildings, it’s lightyears away from where we are now.
“From the modern-day Sugdens we’ve got a lot of fire services, so the public sector is a big part of what we do plus any company that has a local item.
“It doesn’t always have to be a big corporate or public agency, we can supply uniforms to a company based on 10 or 20 garments with a simple logo.
“We do a lot of manufacturing product development here at our site in Wakefield.”
Every business will have a slightly different need, Ms Allen said.
“Be it if we were working with the police,” she said.
“If they want to change the traditional white shirt to a more modern fabric or maybe trousers, as you can imagine a lot of the police officers have to have really robust trousers because they are jumping over things, being pulled at and [we have to] make sure that the trousers are not ripping.
“They have to be comfortable for the wearer - that’s our number one priority.
“Some of the conditions people are facing every day in these different organisations be it police or firefighters, they are testing.
“These people are looking out for us, they are the people who we all rely on should we ever need them.
“We work with these companies and deliver high standards and I think that’s really important.”
Another example of the type of fabric and uniforms they produce are for ambulance workers.
“For an ambulance for example, what you see the crew wearing is the type of clothing like jackets, trousers, polos,” Ms Allen said.
“We don’t provide any PPE or anything like that.
“It’s not just frontline people who wear our garments, we’ve got people who take calls and support staff, who also wear our garments.
“That’s the case for firefighters as well, you’ve got a lot of people that are not just on the front line workers.
“The workwear world is an interesting arena because as someone who has never worked with clothes before, I’ve worked in other marketing roles, train companies, retail, you kind of underestimate what it takes for a garment to get to the shelf or hanger in the store, not realising what details go into it.”
Wm Sugden is now introducing a new area of work they provide uniforms for - paramedics, Ms Allen said.
“It’s not just working with the NHS, it’s working with privately owned ambulance companies that may well be doing work on behalf of the NHS,” she said.
“There’s been a big growth area there, plus the paramedic students as well.
“Locally at Bradford for example they have a paramedic course at Bradford University but there are quite a few around the country that we’ve been supplying uniforms to.
“We usually do a ‘fit day’ where our team will go out, people who are attending that particular course will come and do a fitting, then they can place their order.
“We put a lot of time and effort into making sure that those who are wearing our garments have the best opportunity.”
Quality and consistency of quality is what stands them out in the industry, Ms Allen said.
“We work closely with our manufacturers to get the product right and the whole process of quality control, we take that very seriously,” she said.
“You don’t exist for 150 years plus unless you’ve got attention to detail and a good quality product and that’s a testament to our team.
“We’re not a huge organisation and to be fair a lot of our manufacturing would have been done within Yorkshire, certainly the location I’m based in Wakefield.
“We do have an element of a factory, it would have been as big as the one we would have had in yesteryear but we still do a lot of the embroidery, decoration on site.”
Many staff members at Wm Sugdens have been working there for more than 25 years.
“We have what we call our 25 Club; those employees who have done 25 years of service and above,” Ms Allen said.
“We have an annual lunch or dinner and people who have served for 25 years and above come.
“People love working here and the family [founders] still attend [the lunch or dinner] which is amazing.”