Make do and mend

Over the previous 18 months or so, I have kept Howard’s Way upbeat and humourous rather than downbeat and humourless. The reason being that for drycleaners, things were tough for a long time prior to Covid-19, with an ever diminishing quantity of work as a result of a change in many workplaces from wearing business clothes to casual (and washable) garments. The advent of clothing that was so ridiculously cheap to buy, that to clean it was more expensive than buying new again didn’t help much either.

It is only recently that the environmental issues caused by throw away cheap clothing have been appreciated. Things are becoming much more make do and mend, which dates back to wartime Great Britain.

There are of course many other factors as to the loss of trade, the main one I believe was the recession of 2008 and I do not believe it ever really finished. I recall many of our regular suit-wearing customers who would normally get multiple suits cleaned each week, started to eke out the frequency and quantity of items – the suit trousers came in when they became really creased and the jackets were only rarely cleaned.

When the pandemic struck and the Government brought in the measures of closing businesses, even in my five decades in the industry this is not something that I ever witnessed previously. I recall clearly working in the 1970s when there were power cuts, strikes, rubbish on the streets and so on, we still managed to stay open and our customers still maintained their regular drycleaning habits, but this forced business closure has seen casualties both small and large.

On the plus side the textile care industry was seen as an essential service, but on the minus side with so many people isolating or working from home, there was nobody on the streets and what little business wear was still being worn prior to the pandemic was kept in the wardrobe as people totally dressed down (or didn’t get dressed at all) in their home environment.

The pandemic is now under control despite, as I write this, the silly ‘fuel shortage’ panic. What is of real concern and the next long term issue on the agenda is the hike in energy prices. What does a business do? Try to absorb the increased cost of everything or pass it on in an already difficult market?

I do not have any of the answers. I do, however, have the ‘Howard’s Way’ of dealing with it.

No matter how bleak things look, always try to look on the bright side, all these trials and tribulations will pass and become but memories ever. These events will form part of your company’s history and that is something that you can be proud of as a survivor.