A hoodie can conjure many images, from shaven headed youths jumping over wire fences to trendy hipsters lounging around at a music festival. It is the latter notion that appealed to a trio of friends when they established the Gym+Coffee range of ‘athleisure’ clothing in 2017.

“At G+C we believe a healthy balance in life is essential. Gym plus coffee, exercise plus socializing, is the key,” explained co-founder Diarmuid McSweeney.

Gym+Coffee, where the other partners in the venture are Karl Swaine and Niall Horgan, sells hoodies, t-shirts, beanies, and leggings. The products are made by sub-contractors. In their initial search, the founders trawled through AliBaba, and ended up using a manufacturer in Singapore.

For the website, Gym+Coffee used a small web design agency before moving the platform onto Shopify. Order fulfilment has been outsourced to 2Flow in Finglas, part of the Cyclone Couriers group. For American sales – the website has a dedicated section for US buyers – there is an outsource partner in Michigan.

“There has been a huge cultural shift in Ireland in the last few years, in what people are doing with their spare time. It is about people keeping active and keeping healthy. We see the perfect balance equation,” said McSweeney.

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Mind Blowing

Gym+Coffee has also moved into leggings, which are sold in five sizes, priced from €65 to €70. To show them off, the company had a tent at last year’s Wellfest event in Royal Hospital Kilmainham.

According to McSweeney: “The biggest turnout of the whole weekend was for a session by fitness guru Joe Wicks, aka The Bodycoach, who has over two million followers on his Instagram. At one point Joe pointed to our tent and told everyone to support Gym+Coffee, which was pretty mind blowing.”

When recruiting last year, Gym+Coffee advertised a job vacancy for a ‘Lead Hoodie Trier-Onner’. Applicants had to have a minimum 15 years of experience in hoodie wearing, ability to perform in incredibly comfortable work environments, and strong proficiency in zipping things up (down was a bonus).

“The successful candidate will be expected to try on at least seven hoodies per week, although wearing the same hoodie for 365 days a year interests us too,” the job ad stated.

Now Gym+Coffee, based in Rathmines and with 17 staff, has been selected as the winner of the Dublin City Enterprise Award 2019, winning €5,000.  The venture will represent the Local Enterprise Office at the National Enterprise Awards on May 29, competing against 30 other finalists from every local authority area for a share of the €40,000 prize fund.

The company secured grant support from Dublin City LEO to fund additional staffing and to research export markets.

LEO Dublin City’s Greg Swift commented: “The judges were particularly impressed by their business strategy, the extent of job creation and their success in domestic and export markets.”

Photo: Karl Swaine (left), Diarmuid McSweeney (centre) and Niall Horgan. (Pix:  Peter Houlihan, Fennell Photography)