By Kate Hills
4.2
55 ratings
The podcast currently has 419 episodes available.
Celebrating the 300th episode of this podcast I look back at some of the amazing guests that I've had on this show from the world of UK fashion and textile manufacturing. Manufacturers that have shared their stories, their challenges, and their successes with us.
Episodes / Manufacturers featured in this episode:
Episode 102 - David Collinge | John Spencer Textiles
Episode 005 - Keith Hanshaw | The Leather Satchel Company
Episode 088 - Chris Woodford | Crown Northampton
Episode 193 - Ian Maclean | John Smedley MBE
Episode 55 - Lance Mitchell | Mitchell Interflex
Episode 113 - Ruth Masson | Harris Tweed
Episode 290 - Christopher Nieper | David Nieper OBE
Episode 96 - Richard Ince | Ince Umbrellas
Episode 004 - Jo Ashburner-Farr | Red Dragon Flagmakers
Episode 254 - Chris Childs | Contrado
Episode 21 - Jenny Holloway | Fashion Enter
Episode 31 - Mick Cheema | Basic Premier
Episode 299 - A visit to Vagabond bags with Simon Michelson
Episode 118 - David Williams | Stoll GB
Episode 203 - Saed Saleh | Mars Knitwear
Episode 060 - Diana Kakkar | Maes London
Episode 252 - Maxine Wells | Intimate Apparel Samples
Episode 080 - Mustafa Fuat | Gosha London
Episode 054 - Peter Philips | Abbey England
Episode 292 - David Courtney | Courtney & Co
This episode also marks the final episode of series 6. I'll be taking a break from podcasting for a while. Whilst there won't be making any new episodes for you to listen to, there are over 150 hours of previous episodes to catch up and re-listen to.
HANDY LINKS
British Brand Accelerator - Work closely with me to start or grow your UK-made brand.
Newsletter - Subscribe for a weekly dose of inspiration and advice on making in the UK
Make it British Website
YouTube
Mentioned in this episode:
British Brand Accelerator
Join me on a tour round a factory!
In this episode I'm chatting with Simon Michelson, owner of Vagabond Bags, a sewing factory in Swindon that makes cosmetic bags, shower caps and hot water bottle covers.
Meet some of the people working in the factory, hear about the jobs they do and find out how many shower hats one person can make in a day. Spoiler - it's quite a lot!
HANDY LINKS
British Brand Accelerator - Work closely with me to start or grow your UK-made brand.
Newsletter - Subscribe for a weekly dose of inspiration and advice on making in the UK
Make it British Website
YouTube
I'm joined today by 3 amazing people that work tirelessly in the UK fashion and textile industry.
You may have seen in the press recently that several high profile brands have been affected by the close of Matches, but did you know about the knock on affect that has had on the UK manufacturers?
I also heard yesterday the sad news that the Mackintosh factory in Lancashire is closing. What the heck is going on?
So I went live on Instagram with 3 special guests to discuss the topic, and this episode is your opportunity to hear the full discussion if you missed the live.
My guests are:
Tamara Cincik from think tank Fashion Roundtable
Mustafa Fuat from Gosha London
Diana Kakkar from Maes London
Some of the keys points we discussed:
Watch the original Instagram live here
The title says it all. Listen to find out what it is!
HANDY LINKS
British Brand Accelerator - Work closely with me to start or grow your UK-made brand.
Newsletter - Subscribe for a weekly dose of inspiration and advice on making in the UK
Make it British Website
YouTube
Join me on a visit to KC Manufacturing (previously Kalopsia Collective) in Dumferline, Scotland to meet with husband and wife team Adam Robertson and Nina Falk.
KC Manufacturing is a social enterprise specialising in small batch manufacturing.
Discover:
About KC Manufacturing
KC Manufacturing website
Episode 51 - Small Batch Manufacturing with Adam Robertson, Kalopsia Collective.
HANDY LINKS
British Brand Accelerator - Work closely with me to start or grow your UK-made brand.
Newsletter - Subscribe for a weekly dose of inspiration and advice on. making in the UK
Make it British Website
YouTube
Regular listeners to this podcast will know that I am all about encouraging brands to manufacture locally. But in some cases, it might not make good sense to do so.
In this episode I explain the 4 reasons why you might NOT want to make in the UK.
Want my advice on whether your product should or could be made here? Reach out to my with a direct message on Instagram @makeitbritish here
HANDY LINKS
British Brand Accelerator - Work closely with me to start or grow your UK-made brand.
Newsletter - Subscribe for a weekly dose of inspiration and advice on. making in the UK
Make it British Website
YouTube
One of the questions that came up on one of our recent British Brand Accelerator group coaching calls was so good, I thought I'd bring it to you on the podcast this week.
The question was about whether a small business that makes in the UK should be offering a discount when someone opts in to their newsletter, and whether this strategy works.
It opened a whole discussion amongst the group about the pros and cons of discounting and other ideas for getting potential customers to sign up to your newsletter.
So if you are wondering the same thing about discounting, this episode is for you!
Sign up the the British Brand Accelerator waitlist here - www.makeitbritish.co.uk/waitlist
This week I’m bringing some very sad news - that the UK’s only cotton spinning mill, English Fine Cottons, which brought cotton spinning back to Greater Manchester in 2018, has very sadly gone into administration.
In case you don’t know about the history of English Fine Cottons, it was set up by the technical textile spinners Culimeta-Saveguard, who invested £4.8m of its own money, £2m of which was a loan from the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, to regenerate a former Victorian cotton mill and install new technology to create luxury yarn. A further £1m was awarded as a grant by the N Brown Textile Growth Programme.
English Fine Cottons was the start of something very exciting in UK manufacturing, and for this to have happened is tragic. The collapse into administration is caused by the parent group Culimeta-Saveguard going down, and unfortunately that has taken the cotton spinning down with it. Something needs to be done to save our only cotton spinning mill, otherwise this is history repeating itself.
So today's episode is a remastered version of a visit that I did to English Fine Cottons in 2019, along with an interview with Andy Ogden, who was the general manager at the time.
Back in 2012 I was contacted by someone who was trying to save the UK’s last remaining horn button maker - Grove & Sons. He was looking for investors to buy up the machinery and pattern books from the business so that the art of natural button making in the UK was not lost.
Well it turns out that the investor that this guy eventually found was someone called David Courtney, who saw an ad to buy the machinery and patterns, and decided that he wanted to help.
But things are never as easy as the seem, and this initial investment took David Courtney down a very long and winding path to bring button making back to the UK.
Over a decade later and David Courtney now has an amazing button-making factory in the Cotswolds, with state of the art machinery, producing buttons from 3 different types of materials. He’s also enlisted his lovely wife Andrea to head the factory up, and they now supply the most beautiful buttons to brands and designers wanting an authentic UK-made button, still made using the original patterns that David saved from Grove & Sons.
This interview was recorded onsite in their factory in Bourton-on-the-Water, Gloucestershire, and Andrea and David recount the full tale of how Courtney & Co buttons got to where they are today.
About Courtney & Co
Courtney & Co Website
Courtney & Co on Instagram
FURTHER RESOURCES
Quiz: Are you ready to work with a UK factory?
HANDY LINKS
British Brand Accelerator
Make it British Website
YouTube
This episode celebrates 15 years since I registered the domain makeitbritish.co.uk and busts some of the myths about UK manufacturing.
You'll find out:
To see the video recording of this talk, go to makeitbritish.co.uk/microfactories
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The podcast currently has 419 episodes available.