The Glasgow Times is featuring the six candidates hoping to be voted Glasgow's Favourite Business for 2023.

The award, sponsored by this paper, is part of the Glasgow Business Awards organised by Glasgow Chamber of Commerce with Royal Bank of Scotland as the main sponsor.

For the founder of The Blankfaces, taking care of others is second nature.

Gerard McKenzie-Govan set up the Glasgow-based clothing brand in 2018 with the aim of ending homelessness - a cause that he was raised to be passionate about.

The Blankfaces has been on the rise ever since, celebrating the third anniversary of its flagship on Great Western Road as well as a pop-up shop in Manchester.

Glasgow Times:

Gerard, 42, told the Glasgow Times: “When I was setting up the Blankfaces, I had my little boy and my mum passed away as well.

“It was in her honour because she worked so tirelessly to help people.”

Gerard was raised in a homeless hotel his mother owned and operated in Ayr.

He said: “We were never rich at all. We stayed in one of the rooms in the hotel, there was never a them and an us.

“We were always just a big, weird, crazy family.

“There would be a lot of families in the hotel, older people, younger people. I was raised never to look down on anyone."

Using his lived experience with the homeless community and his background in retail, Gerard wanted to build a label that pushed back against virtue-signalling.

Each piece sold by The Blankfaces is designed alongside people who have or are experiencing homelessness.

Glasgow Times:

The designer receives a direct percentage of the product sales and the rest goes back into the brand's charitable endeavors.

The name is inspired by the experience of being "just a blank face" felt by homeless people Gerard has worked with.

He said: "Nobody sees them in the street, they just walk past them. We wanted to be a blank-face brand.

"I want our pieces to spark a conversation. We take the stories of people who have been through the most horrendous, unimaginable things you can think of, and we turn them into a design.

"We didn’t want to be exposing people experiencing homelessness, we want people to come in and buy the designs and have the designs speak for themselves.

"The brand is about changing people’s minds and perceptions on homelessness.”

In addition to the shop floor, the flagship unit in the West End now has a "Tuck Shop" food pantry that is free for anyone in need to access, no questions asked.

Gerard and the team are thrilled to be nominated for the Glasgow's Favourite Business Award.

He added: "I think we've made a lot of change in people's lives and it's nice to be acknowledged."

The winner of The Glasgow Times Award for Glasgow's Favourite Business will be revealed at the annual Glasgow Business Awards ceremony, taking place at the DoubleTree by Hilton Glasgow Central on Thursday 5 October 2023. Voting closes at midnight on September 18, 2023.

Place your vote for The Glasgow Times Award for Glasgow's Favourite Business here.