THE FOUNDER of award-winning online Irish T-shirt company Hairy Baby is set to record a turnover of about €750,000 this year along with 22,500 Facebook fans.
The company, set up six years ago, has a portfolio of about 400 witty designs that chime with an Irish audience at home and abroad.
Entrepreneur Daragh Murphy describes himself as “the original hairy baby”and produces a photograph of himself as a seven-week-old infant complete with a thatch of black hair at the launch of a pop-up shop and retrospective exhibition yesterday. The company’s most popular designs were on display at Gallery Number One in Dublin’s Christchurch.
The former sound and audiovisual engineer said the idea for the company came from constantly having to buy UK or US labels for his music work.
“For years we’ve been branded with this whole Irish begorrah, top of the morning and shamrock stuff. I wanted to change that, to offer cool T-shirts with an alternative form of Irish identity,” he said.
Quirky best-selling slogans like “State of Yer Man” and “I’m a savage for bacon and cabbage” have become conversation starters sported by celebrities such as Des Bishop and Snow Patrol’s Gary Lightbody.
Having invested €60,000 in technical equipment, and with five full-time employees, the entrepreneur now intends to concentrate on product development.
The Hairy Baby exhibition opens on October 15th and runs until November 12th.
:quality(70)/s3.amazonaws.com/arc-authors/irishtimes/d33dd2e5-4d19-4a18-a981-cd0fd876ce62.png)