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Prosser's Progress

Thursday, 21 September 2006

Elizabeth Donevan speaks to the founder of Flannels

While British department stores pondered on expanding beyond the perimeter of the M25, boutique store Flannels was making a mint catering for the designer luvvies up North.

He is the brains behind one of the region’s great retail success stories, but most people would struggle to spot his distinctive bushy eyebrows in a crowd of grey-suited fifty-somethings. Yet Neil Prosser, the founder and owner of Manchester-based high fashion retail chain Flannels, has been in business now for 30 years.
He has managed to keep a low profile to date by generally avoiding contact with journalists, convinced that the grumpy old man behind the scenes wouldn’t be much of a draw. Yet the man who disproved Posh Spice’s theory that there was “No Gucci or Prada in Manchester” has now decided to break his silence just for EN.
We’ve arrived early for the interview, which takes place at Flannels HQ in the middle of Trafford Park’s industrial estate. As we do, two adolescent receptionists are recoiling from Prosser’s impatient growl. He is pacing from room to room, berating some supplier or other and presenting a chaotic set-up in stark contrast to the serene celebrity images that adorn the walls.
Once within the confines of his office, though, this impatience is replaced with an overwhelming awkwardness and one gets the feeling his business-like attitude has disguised an otherwise shy and reserved character.
Prosser’s exposure to the fashion industry began at an early age. His father’s career in textiles took the family around the world before they eventually settled in Manchester when Neil was four years old.
“I left school without excelling in any subjects. I chose retail because I had worked in the industry since I was a young boy and moving on from there just seemed like a no-brainer, really.”
At the tender age of 16, Prosser left the family home for a blow-out phase in London, blagging a management position with The Burton Group to keep his parents off his back.
“It wasn’t difficult getting a job as a sales assistant back then. If you could speak reasonably well you got a job. I just had to sort myself out so I could tell the family I was doing alright, and they were pleased.”
After four years on the shopfloor, Prosser was headhunted by Jeffrey Quinter, the doyen of menswear retailers and owner of The Village Gate Group, a pioneer of modern British menswear.
“I was in London in the early 1970s and I had a brilliant time. I wasn’t getting into bed at seven o’clock, that’s for sure! But I was never a rebel,” he says. “I was just an independent, hard working guy.”
Prosser’s stint down South was cut short when his father fell ill and he returned North – a twist of fate that proved crucial to his future business direction. He decided to bring the best in British menswear to the North and began looking for premises, eventually opening the first Flannels menswear store in Knutsford in 1976 with a £2,000 loan from his grandfather – a rather generous offer considering the absence of a solid business plan. “He was a kind gentleman who had some faith in me,” he explains. “I knew enough, but I didn’t sit down and work it all out.”
Prosser’s opportunist business approach started from there and seemingly continued. He found a carefree landlord, decent premises and stocked the best British and European labels he could get his hands on.
“At that time we just took what was available to us. Knutsford benefited from a lack of bureaucracy compared to the nearby larger towns and I worked the shop floor pretty much single-handedly for four years.”
He continued as a one-man band until he set up the second outlet in Altrincham’s Goose Green four years later. In 1987, Flannels eventually made the inevitable move into Manchester city centre, creating the first flagship store off St Ann’s Square.
By that stage, Prosser had no choice but to share the workload, eventually taking on a financial manager, operations director, and a small marketing team. Yet even with a decent support team around him, Prosser says that control remains solely in his hands.
“I like to think of this as a little large business, in the sense that it is a big business run in a smaller way,” he says. “I hire independent people with the ability to work on their own, but they come to me as a mentor and I am involved in every sector of the business every day. As a managing director, I should be able to help with every problem.”
In 1992, having established a reputation for Flannels as a supporter of relatively obscure brands, Prosser came up with the concept of splitting the casual and workwear ranges from the more elegant labels and opened the first Life store on Old Bank Street in Manchester.
“We had two types of customer in the same store, but the environment was not ideal for either. A 45-year-old lawyer and a semi-pro footballer, for example, were shopping side by side, and we wanted to create another style of outlet so we could cater specifically for both.”
Despite operating at half the size of the all-incorporating 20,000 sq ft stores, the Life outlets proved successful, and the concept was used for Flannels’ first move across the Pennines to Leeds in 1993 and in Birmingham a year later.

The mid-1990s saw the Flannels boutiques take on a department store image and in 1994 Prosser branched out into womenswear, opening the first of two stores in Manchester’s Royal Exchange. “By then, the business was evolving. The market was good, opportunities came and we took them.”
Since then, the Flannels Group has grown to 13 stores across the UK’s leading cities, including three in Manchester, one each in Cardiff, Nottingham and Leeds, and a second outlet in Birmingham planned to open soon.
For Prosser, though, the latest opening as an anchor tenant in Liverpool’s trendy MetQuarter represents the progress made over the past decade, as Flannels secured a prime site despite growing competition from a multitude of larger designer fashion chains.
“Many situations over the years have made me question whether we would survive the next six months, never mind six years. Our banks were being quite difficult with us two years ago. They were having a tough time with retail generally and they presented us with a big challenge by raising interest rates.
“But Liverpool was particularly under-shopped. We were offered the opportunity to go in as anchor tenants and that was a key factor in our move there.”
The aim now is to create a Flannels presence in all of the UK’s top 10 cities and to test the waters down South, in a bid to increase both the top and bottom line at the £22 million-turnover firm. “We are now in six or seven of those cities and we are looking at London and Bristol after the Birmingham opening. But the market is not the same as it was ten years ago. Most city centres now will have a Harvey Nichols and a Selfridges, and we’re used to that kind of competition. We’ve adapted to that market place.”
More important than competitors, though, are the locations and Prosser says that he’s willing to wait for the right sites to become available, which means his immediate efforts are going to be focused on developing a Flannels-branded range of products.
“We’re working on a three-year plan. We have found the suppliers and we are ready to move with it, but we’re taking a very cautious approach. It will have its own vision and, like all fashion, it won’t stay the same.”
As far as his long-term ambitions go, he says he’s not interested in selling his brand to anyone else, and he’s adamant that he will resist flotation as a means of growing the firm, preferring the independence that will allow him to develop the company at his own pace. “We still have lots to do, the retail market is challenging at the moment and we want to expand a lot. We are making changes constantly and reacting to the market because, if you don’t change, you don’t survive.”
At 56, and going strong on just three hours of sleep a night, there is no sign of Prosser senior giving up any time soon. He has, however, already dismissed the idea of handing over the business to his two sons. “They are too clever to do what I’m doing,” he laughs.
“And I don’t strictly believe in inheriting the business anyway. Giving a child a business is giving them a problem, unless they are capable of and passionate about running it. Particularly the second generation, because they can’t have the same level of pride, and a business can often be a burden. A small business is great to hand over, but 13 shops – it’s a lot of responsibility.”
And it’s a responsibility he won’t give up easily. Prosser has forced the fashion radar beyond London, and established a respected brand in the process. As he makes plans for the 30th birthday party extravaganza, his humility is refreshing: “I’m not in it just to make money, that’s what so many people get wrong about entrepreneurs. I don’t wake up in the morning and marvel at what I’ve achieved. I’ve got a good lifestyle and a good job, but there is still so much to do day-to-day before I am really satisfied.”
Despite Prosser’s grudging agreement to pose for our photographer <David Blower> and his difficulty in mustering a smile, it seems he may have enjoyed the whole experience more than he let on. His PA has been on the phone asking for some extra prints and it appears that he thought he looked rather fetching that day.
Admit it, Prosser, it wasn’t all that bad after all, was it?