Two garment decorators have teamed up to launch a podcast to provide insights and inspiration from people running businesses across the industry.
Freddy Craze of Master Stitch and Adrian Potrzebowski of Kwik Shirts – both based in Harlow in Essex – have gone live with The Rag Trade Podcast on a dedicated new YouTube channel.
Every two weeks on Fridays, they are releasing a new video episode, featuring frank and revealing conversations with the owners of other garment decoration businesses as well as clothing and equipment suppliers.
After an introductory episode where co-hosts Freddy and Adrian talk about their own careers, the first episodes have featured Peter Joyce, founder and managing director of TOTShirts, and Dean Goodwin of supplier Midwest Machinery.
The next episode goes live tomorrow (15 May) with Sanjay Jheinga, co-founder of garment supplier Absolute Apparel.
“A lot of the time you don’t get to see the real bosses behind the desk,” Freddy points out. “We want people to see how different people have got to where they are.
“We want to give people the raw, unedited version of what a mad industry we work in.”
Freddy rates other podcasts that provide more technical insights into garment decoration but he and Adrian wanted to create something that would be more light-hearted, covering the “pros, cons, loves, hates, good times and bad times” of working in the industry.
He hopes the podcast will inspire younger people to think about garment decoration as a career. “There’s not enough out there to get kids into the industry but we want people to see you don’t need a university degree to do this – if you work hard and put the graft in and grab every opportunity by the balls, you can make it happen.”
They have invested in a studio set and video production at their premises in Harlow and create teaser videos to promote the podcast on its own Instagram channel.
Click here for The Rag Trade Podcast’s YouTube channel.
