TWO Southside sisters have won a prestigious international business award at a glittering event in Lake Maggiore, Italy.
Both young Irish entrepreneurs, Malindi (25) and Elena Demery (21), from Blackrock, claimed the ‘Best Performance Internationally’ award at the annual Freddy Clothing GTM event.
The award recognises the best growth rate among businesses across over 50 countries that now have Freddy Clothing agents.
The girls, who are the exclusive distributors of the popular Freddy Jeans brand in Ireland, have lifted sales to new levels to hit a €1 million turnover.
Having only established their business with the introduction of the Freddy Jeans brand into Ireland 18 months ago, the young entrepreneurs have now seen their clothing distribution business grow as female consumers in particular add to the ‘Freddy Craze’.
Freddy Clothing now has over 50 stockists across Ireland, including eight in Northern Ireland and over 15,000 people, typically in the 16 to 30 age bracket, wearing their bum lifting jeans that are based on patented technology.
The girls operate a 3,000 square foot warehouse in Fashion City in the Ballymount Industrial Estate where they have generated a substantial level of sales through its online ecommerce channel www.Freddy.ie
On the back of this success, Malindi and Elena, trading as Freddy, have just renewed their distribution deal with Freddy Clothing, granting them exclusivity in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland for another five years.
In addition, the girls have been granted exclusivity for all wholesale sales in the UK.
Malindi said they have been absolutely overwhelmed by the interest and demand that they are experiencing for the Freddy Clothing range in Ireland.
“We are very excited about our future plans and what is possible over the next 12 months in terms of growing the business and building the Freddy Clothing brand,” she said. “Our next big venture is to invest in the opening of our first high street retail store in Dublin and to follow this with a number of stores across the UK. We hope to be in a position to formally announce this opening very shortly.”
The company also indicated that it will be looking to acquire new clothing brands, particularly to meet the demand for online shopping and is currently in the process of building a next generation website to be known as Freddy Style.
Freddy Clothing is the brainchild of Italian designer Carlo Freddy. The brand has been well known in Italy for almost 30 years for its active lifestyle clothing.