Scot who saved Mackintosh to hang up his coat

DANIEL Dunko, the man who saved one of Scotland's oldest clothing brands and transformed it into a global fashion powerhouse, is stepping down from Mackintosh after 28 years.

Dunko, who joined the iconic rainwear manufacturer as an apprentice in 1983 when he was just 17, has decided that it is finally time to hang up his coat and vacate the position of managing director to pursue other interests.

He told Scotland on Sunday that he plans to "take some time out" but industry insiders expect it won't be long before he re-emerges in another high-powered fashion job.

Dunko will be replaced by Kent Nomura, a board director at Japanese parent company Yagi Tsusho, which bought the firm from Dunko in 2007 and also owns the quintessentially British Barbour brand.

Nomura will move to work at Mackintosh's headquarters and factory at Cumbernauld, where it employs more than 60 people.

Glaswegian chemist Charles Macintosh - a "k" was added to the name later on - invented rubberised fabric in 1823.

A company manufacturing waterproof coats was set up in 1895 and that enterprise evolved into today's global business whose luxury coats sell for about 300 a piece.

Mackintosh, which also has a factory employing more than 60 people in Lancashire, has its own labels and has also made macs for some of the industry's biggest design houses including Hermes, Louis Vuitton and Prada.

It came close to collapse in the mid-Nineties, but Dunko, who was by then working in sales, succeeded in turning it around, and its hand-crafted coats struck a particular chord with Japanese buyers.

In 2000, when the previous managing director stepped down, he bought the firm and continued to expand it through a number of joint ventures, collaborations with designers such as Erdem and by investing in its own collections.

Earlier this year, the firm opened a flagship London store in upmarket Mayfair.

Tessa Hartmann, founder of the Scottish Fashion Council and Scottish Fashion Awards, said: "He has completely turned the brand around. The real tuning point was in 2000 when he set about quite an ambitious strategy to re-invent it, take off the word 'rainwear' from the name and work with high-end fashion. It was quite a bold move but it has been phenomenal for Mackintosh and from the view of Scottish fashion as well. He's very much respected within the industry."