LESLIE Docherty has forgotten more about menswear fashion brands than the rest of us will ever know.

 

His eagle eye doesn't miss a trick, either.

At one point in the interview I open my canvas shoulder bag to get a notebook.

The bag's label is on show for just a couple of seconds but Leslie spots it, quick as a flash. "Ally Capellino," he says enthusiastically. "I was in the Ally Capellino shop in London just yesterday.

"That's the thing when you buy something really nice, whether it's a watch, a bag or a pair of sunglasses. You always take good care of it.

"There's this idea of things being disposable now. Girls can go into a certain High Street store and come out with three massive bags having spent £50, and if you get two or three good wears out of it, you're quite happy.

"Guys tend to be different. If I buy clothing I like to do some research and buy a nice brand I can wear for a year, or a jacket I can wear for a few seasons."

Leslie, 43, really knows what he is talking about.

He runs Fat Buddha, one of the trendiest men's streetware stores in Glasgow.

Leslie had worked in the trendy Flip stores on Queen Street then Bath Street before becoming part of Ikea's management team. He returned to Flip before setting up Fat Buddha with his sister Gillian 10 years ago.

"Working for somebody else is good but you always ask yourself, 'Can you do it better?'," says Leslie as he looks back on his decision to go it alone.

"The way we saw it at the time, Glasgow was the second biggest shopping area outside London.

"It had lots of multiples and chains but what it didn't have was a small independent retailer targeting the over 20's market.

"The idea was born, funds were raised and the lease on the shop was signed - and then the hard work really started."

The original Fat Buddha shop was at the corner of Bath and West Nile Streets, but after four years the company relocated to St Vincent Street, its current three-storey home.

It may not be on Buchanan Street - the busiest fashion street in the city centre - but it more than holds its own, partly because of its range of products, with brands such as Nike and Carhartt as well as lesser-known ones such as Obey, Quiet Life and The Hundreds.

Fat Buddha's range takes in menswear, accessories, men's grooming, footwear, watches, art supplies, books, magazines and toys. German- and French-language versions of the websites have also been launched and are doing well.

"We're now in the fortunate position of having brands approach us, and we decide whether we want to stock them or not," says Leslie.

He has seen enough, over the years, to know that Glasgow is, in his words, "super-stylish."

"I've got a friend who runs a store in Dundee and he knows he will never be able to buy some of the stuff we buy - the customer up there just doesn't get it.

"We get a lot of people here at the weekend from Edinburgh. We ask them why they've shopping through here and they say that Edinburgh doesn't have the shopping they can find through here.

"Glasgow has the art school and a lot more clubs and more retailers than other Scottish cities. There are a lot more people working in these retailers, there's a lot more customers trying to be cool, a lot more people looking at online blogs and reading style magazines.

"If you go out on a Friday night or a Saturday night you obviously want to look your best. You'll spend a lot more time shopping.

"We have lots of DJs shop in here. Our manager is a DJ and some of the staff at DJs. The first question people ask when they come in is, 'What's new this week?'

"People want things that no-one else has got. We tend to buy things in limited numbers and once it's gone it's gone. You know that if you buy a T-shirt, you're not going to see other people wearing it."

Fat Buddha is about to finalise sponsorship with Glasgow School of Art and its associated fashion show.

Leslie and his staff spend a lot of time spotting new and emerging trends.

"We look online, we see what our competitors are doing, we go to big trade shows in Berlin, we go to London," he says.

"I was in London the other day and went for a coffee in Oxford Street, and I sat at the window and looked at what people were wearing - clothes as well as footwear.

"I go to some cool parts of London and to stores such as Liberty, just to see what people are wearing.

"You see something once and think, 'That's quite interesting'. After seeing it for the sixth time you think, 'Maybe we should be looking at that'.

"It's easy to find a brand online now. But sometimes you'll see a guy wearing a nice pair of denims and you can ask them where he got them. Guys love to talk about where they got something - a pair of training shoes, denims, a bag, whatever it is.

"I have no problem at all when I see someone wearing something nice and going up and saying to him, 'These shoes are really nice, where did you get them?'

"But you've got to be out there, all the time, looking around for cool new brands that people feel comfortable wearing."

On the web: www.fatbuddhastore.com/