Pamela Scott
Covid-19 retail lockdowns threatened the survival of the Pamela Scott fashion chain. Richard Barron tells Siobhán O’Connell why closing stores was the only way out
The Barron family fashion chain has survived fires, rent hikes and recession. Covid-19 has proven to be the biggest challenge of all
In its 50-year history, Flairline Fashions has survived a lot. The family business has negotiated recessions, stiff competition from e-commerce, spiralling rents and even a fire that gutted its flagship Grafton Street store. The Covid-19 pandemic has been the stiffest challenge of all.
In October 2020, the business announced plans to close 12 of its Pamela Scott stores, making 104 staff redundant. Among the closures was the flagship shop on Grafton Street in Dublin and the retailer’s focus is now mostly outside the capital. For chief executive Richard Barron, the restructuring has been a bitter pill to swallow.
Working in the family business since he was a child, Barron became a director at 21. He and his three brothers steered the company under the tutelage of their father, Sean Barron, who established the business as a fashion wholesaler in 1970. “The shop closures were a necessity to keep
Pamela Scott viable,” says Richard. “We still have to get through Covid-19 but our online trade is good.”
Flairline Fashions, the Pamela Scott operating company, has been through a rough patch before. Some of its subsidiaries entered examinership in 2013 in the fallout from the last recession, a process that resulted in substantial write-downs for Ulster Bank. The latest Flairline accounts, for the year to August 2019, reported annual turnover of €19.5m and a small trading loss. Total liabilities were €7.6m, including €3.2m owed to the Barron family, and net worth was a negative €3.4m.
According to Richard Barron, sales across the Pamela Scott chain through 2020 have slumped by 30% to 70%, depending on the location. “Our online sales currently make up c.22% of turnover compared with 7% in 2019,” Barron adds. “We want to increase that proportion to 25%, but the shops are central to what we do.”
The Barron patriarch (83), who pre-Covid divided his time between Dublin and Florida, is still involved in the business, regularly attending head office in Fashion City. Sean Barron started his retailing career in the stockroom in Best Menswear, working his way up to becoming a buyer, before venturing out on his own with a wholesaling business.
Barron opened the first Pamela Scott shop on Grafton Street in 1976. When a fire ripped through the premises in 1987, Sean was playing tennis in Carrickmines. “He got a call telling him about the fire and continued with his game, on the basis that there was nothing he could do about the blaze,” Richard Barron recalls.
Despite that setback – it took two years to reconstruct the premises Sean Barron continued to expand the business, which clicked with fashionconscious women aged 30 and over.
Pamela Scott founder Sean Barron (left) and his son Richard, who runs the business now
In 1997, Flairline acquired the Ashley Reeves group, a wholesaler with six shops, while Richard Alan was acquired in 1999.
Also in the 1990s, Sean Barron and Michael Smurfit developed the Riverview tennis and fitness club in Clonskeagh, which was sold to David Lloyd in 2000. Dad Sean is described by Richard as “a real shark on the tennis court and the golf course”. The family’s best tennis player is Scott Barron, who represented Ireland at the Olympic Games.
Sean Barron’s four sons John (54), Richard (52), Robert (49) and Scott (46) all became involved in the business. For Richard Barron, his Pamela Scott career commenced with sweeping floors from the age of 11 during school holidays. According to Richard: “Working in the business wasn’t a chore. There were 25 to 30 girls and me and my brother John. We worked hard and we enjoyed it. I went on buying trips with Sean from the age of 17, learning the art of buying. By the age of 22, I was doing trade shows in Paris on my own.
“It was a family decision to give me the MD/CEO role about two years ago. John manages operations, while Scott is my number two and oversees distribution. Robert manages marketing, and my son Jack, 22, is working in the business too.”
Sean Barron cashed in on the pre-crash property boom in 2006, when he sold the threeacre family home in Killiney for €22m. The same year there was a €6.4m settlement with the Revenue over a tax matter. The onset of recession in 2009 dented trade, but also provided an opportunity to open stores outside the capital. After the closures in October, the remaining Pamela Scott shops are located in Clonmel, Mullingar, Castlebar, Waterford, Newbridge, Wexford, Ennis, Letterkenny, Middleton, Athlone, Navan, and Kilkenny.
Outlets in Cork and the Frascati Centre in Dublin were in the closures announcement but they are still trading. In addition, Flairline operates two Ashley Reeves shops in Dublin, and the Lisa Perkins boutique in Blackrock. Besides Grafton Street, the shops that have ceased trading are located in Swords, Blanchardstown, Limerick, Tralee, Carlow, Sligo, Dundalk, Gorey and Nenagh.
The Pamela Scott business strategy included plans to grow its online presence. In 2019, Richard Barron invested in some new online sales expertise, though he concedes that the website took a back seat to the shops.
“We were so engrossed with our shops that online didn’t have our full attention. I was aware of the high rate of product returns experienced by other online retailers. So before Covid, we took our time with the online aspect and didn’t throw money at it.”
That attitude was sharply revised last March, with the first national lockdown. “Business just stopped for us - the whole thing just fell apart,” says Barron. “We had to ramp up
online as quickly as possible. Everyone was working around the clock putting the stock up online and doing the promotions.
“The amount of people buying from the website gave us hope for the future. We used influencers more than ever because there was no choice. The site improved and so did engagement. We have 120,000 loyalty-card holders that we could e-mail and they responded really well. At one stage I was packing orders, which is like being on the shop floor because you can see what’s selling.”
Barron acknowledges that e-commerce is not a panacea. “Online retailing is more competitive than the high street. Everybody who wasn’t online had to develop a web presence this year, and boutiques all over the country have done a fantastic job. So the competition is just phenomenal. The main challenge online is customer engagement. That means showcasing the fashion, so customers can see what it looks like on a real person.”
When the first lockdown ended in June, Barron scrambled to put the required safety measures in place to open up the shops. “We spent around €70,000 buying sanitisers, signs and other equipment. People came back to the stores slowly, and sales were down by two-thirds. Regional stores did better but sales were still down by about 30% year-on-year.”
When the second lockdown was mooted in the autumn, the Barron family faced up to closing some outlets. “We talked to solicitors and accountants, and we knew that if we didn’t close stores we’d be out of business in a few months. We didn’t want to make that decision because we don’t like closing shops,” says Richard.
The family decided to wait until Budget 2021 was announced before finalising their course of action, in the vain hope that government would deliver “something spectacular”. No such saving grace arrived. The final decision to pull the plug came at a meeting on Tuesday October 13, the evening of the budget, with Sean Barron and his four sons sitting around the boardroom table at their Fashion City office in Ballymount. Richard Barron describes the meeting as emotional and difficult.
“None of us wanted to close the shops and let people go. At the outset of the pandemic, our objective was to keep trading and save all the jobs.
But it didn’t work. We gave it a go, we gave it everything. Sean has been through some ups and downs over the years but nothing has been as bad as this.”
Provisional liquidators from KPMG were appointed to two Flairline subsidiary companies to effect the shop closures. All the brothers were tasked with visiting the affected stores to break the bad news. “We wanted to make sure that every employee knew about the closures before anybody else. I broke the news to the staff in Grafton Street. Even though the store footfall was on the floor, many of them thought we’d get through this, because we had before.
“I think maybe it hasn’t hit me yet completely, and probably won’t for a couple of months. We had to restructure to make sure we could survive, and who knows what that future holds. Hopefully the arrival of vaccines will make a difference to consumer confidence. Our remaining shops have a great chance, and we also have our online presence.”
Barron adds: “No matter what happens in January, we’re now in a much better position to trade through any further lockdowns. January and February will be tough months but I’m confident that whatever they throw at us now we’re equipped to take it on.”