Schoolwear Association reveals winners of annual awards

The Schoolwear Association held its annual awards ceremony on October 14 and has now revealed the winners.

They were as follows:

• Best Schoolwear Specialist 2018 (Less than 10 full-time staff) – Total Clothing
  Total Clothing has been trading for 29 years, supplying over 125 schools through a multi-channel approach and growing its school market by an average 22% a year over the last five years. Recent developments include redesigned production facilities, two new warehouses, the launch of a green initiative and tours of the business for local primary schools.
• Best Schoolwear Specialist 2018 (More than 10 fulltime staff) –Stevensons School Uniform Outfitters
  Founded in St Albans in 1925, Stevensons has expanded from supplying school uniform to around 40 local schools to over 500 schools throughout the UK via 14 high street branches countrywide, 13 school campus shops, over 240 school pop-up selling events a year on school premises and hundreds of school online-shops. The strategy to increase business both organically as well as through acquisition has pushed the year-on-year sales forecast to +40%, building on 2017’s 36% increase.
• Best Digital Schoolwear 2018 – Schoolblazer
  Schoolblazer’s website includes its own intelligent sizing solution, with refinements this year meaning parents can now see an avatar of their child. Investment in infrastructure has seen the business achieve Back to School availability of over 98.5%. Furthermore, 100% of orders are shipped within three days and almost 70% within 24-hours of ordering, which includes the sewing of name tapes free of charge. Today, Schoolblazer serves 150 UK independent schools and eight schools internationally and has a turnover of over £12m.
• Best Schoolwear Supplier 2018 – David Luke
  David Luke is well known for its dedicated support of independent retailers and schoolwear stockists, with customers being at the core of everything it does. Recent examples of investment in service level improvements to help customers include an online trade ordering site, dedicated account handlers in customer relations and an increase in stock levels by almost 40% this year.
• Best Community Partner 2018 – Early Years
  Early Years has been a member of the Solihull community for 50 years since opening its first shop in Knowle in 1968. The business is always on hand to sensitively help pupils struggling with uniform purchases, including supplying schools with vouchers that can be distributed to the neediest of the pupils, not charging extra for special items and accepting uniform grants from a local Education Foundation Trust. Early Years also supports its schools through sponsorship of tours, music/drama productions and the supply of raffle prizes; it backs local charities and fundraising events and regularly sends surplus uniform to charities in Africa – in 2017 it sent over £15,000 worth of unwanted uniform to charity.
• Outstanding Service to Schoolwear 2018 – Heather Walker, Trutex
  Heather Walker has been described as having Trutex running through her veins, with her whole working career dedicated to the company. Heather began in product development, where she was instrumental in the launch of key, industry changing products and ranges. Her product and industry knowledge led her into a sales role and today she leads the sales team, travelling the country to look after retail customers and schools. In 2010, Heather also joined Trutex’s board of directors.