By Claire Corrigan
A budding Westmeath entrepreneur was one of the contestants to appear on the last episode of the seventh series of RTÉ’s ‘Dragons’ Den’ earlier this month.
Mullingar man Brendan McEvoy was seeking €80,000 for a 15 percent share in his leather accessory range called ‘My Name is Ted’ with the Irish leather accessory market valued at €130 million per year.
Brendan McEvoy, who lives in Mullingar, along with his wife, Kasia Gaborec-McEvoy, made quite an impression with their unique leather bags and wallets for both men and women on the reality show which features entrepreneurs pitching their business ideas in order to secure investment finance from a panel of venture capitalists.
Brendan told Topic that when he saw an ad for the show online, he thought it would be a great opportunity to get the word out about his new business.
“We had set up the business about ten or eleven months at that stage and we thought it was opportunity to get our story out there about how the brand came about and also to get some feedback on the product and company and maybe get some investment. We applied and they loved what we were doing, so they called us in for an interview. Then they selected us for the show.”
The idea for the range came about when Brendan wanted to do something to pay tribute to his grandfather, Ted, who made leather bags, despite suffering from a disability. “My grandfather Ted made leather bags in 1942. He didn’t have the use of his left hand because he was paralysed on the right-hand side. So I decided I wanted to understand the journey and challenges that he went through in more detail. It started out with me wanting to make a tribute bag to him to commemorate everything he had achieved.”
“I went around to all the top makers in Ireland and spent time in their workshops and spoke to them about it. Then I went to Italy, Spain and Portugal to other suppliers and makers. We just fell in love with it and decided that we were going to make a range of leather goods. The whole cross-functional aspect came from the fact that my grandfather crossed over from right-handed to left- handed to make his bags, so we wanted our bags to have a kind of hidden surprise or something that you wouldn’t expect them to have.”
There was little doubt that the dragons were very impressed with the products, with Eamonn Quinn saying, “It’s a great starting story to have with all that legacy. The bags look lovely, they look really well made. I would love to see an Irish brand like this out in the market place,” with Gavin Duffy adding, “good design, good sourcing”.
Inspired by Ted’s ability to cross over from right to left-handed, to make his bags, using his mouth and left hand, Brendan wanted to create a functional range of luxury business and lifestyle crossover bags. “Our bags can be carried as a back pack, cross body messenger or a shoulder bag. They come with a power bank and special pocket to charge your smart devices on the move. They adapt to all commuters’ preferred mode of transport and are designed and built to last for generations to come.”
Mountmellick man, Brendan, who has lived in Mullingar for nine years, said that the bags are highly functional, with a lot of innovative features such as a specific pocket for portable smartphone charging.
“Even though the bags sometimes look quite businessy, you can convert them easily. They are fashion and function perfectly combined to create a luxury range of life bags.”
