A fledgling Dundee clothing company has had its designs snapped up by a national chain.
Marble Boy Clothing which is run by entrepreneur Jamie Shankland has agreed a deal with TK Maxx that will see its children’s clothing range stocked at outlets across the country.
The 15-piece collection will be sold in stores across the UK.
And for those keen to get a head start on the latest fashions, the company will be running a pop-up shop in The Overgate.
Marble Boy’s clothes all boast designs from local artists and Jamie said that he hopes the TK Maxx deal will help turn it into a nationally- recognised brand.
“The whole point of it is to help local designers and artists,” Jamie told The Courier.
“TX Maxx has around 304 stores in the UK and it has a liquid stock, which means it is rotated around it stores, so we will be sold around the UK.
“We are using it to launch a kids’ collection but I never expected to get involved with such a large retailer. The whole retail sector is pretty hard to break into. If you’re a small company then nobody is really interested but an agent got in touch with us through Instagram and she was able to open doors.
“We’re hoping to use it as a launch platform because once you’ve got into one store, others take you more seriously.”
Marble Boy is also benefiting from the Overgate’s 15 Good Deeds campaign.
The mall is performing one good deed for each of the 15 years it has been open and this is includes allowing Marble Boy to set up a pop-up store on the ground-floor concourse for the next week.
Jamie said: “I’d been hassling The Overgate to give me space for months but the costs were colossal.
“They then came back to me for their 15 Good Deeds.”
Jamie set up Marble Boy after visiting the Duncan of Jordanstone fashion degree show last year. He said he was impressed with the work on show but realised that much of it would never be widely available.
Jamie set up the fashion outlet to help market those designs. The 26-year-old also became a local celebrity after spending £1,000 getting a picture of the traditional old Dundee meeting place beneath the H Samuel clock tattooed on his arm.
Tattooist Calum Stewart, of Metalurgey in Dock Street, said it was the most intricate design he had ever been asked to draw.