Welcome to Episode no.284!Circularity is the buzzword on everyone's lips right now. It's no wonder, when you hear that 350,000 tonnes of clothing goes to landfill in the UK every year. Something needs to be done to stop the mass-consumption that the UK in particularly seems to be pretty bad at! The United Repair Centre, a collaboration between outdoor brand Patagonia, social enterprise Makers Unite, and the Amsterdam Economic Board, is a much needed resource for the clothing industry. And they've opened one up in London! On this episode I chat with one of the United Repair Centre co-founders, Thami Schweichler. We chat about how the URC repair process has combined technology with sewing skills to make repair and circularity available to all, and how any brand can get involved in offering a repair service to their customers. ABOUT UNITED REPAIR CENTRE United Repair Centre Website United Repair Centre Instagram Thami Schweichler Linkedin HANDY LINKS British Brand Accelerator - My mentoring programme Kate's Sunday Journal - My newsletter Make it British Website YouTube Instagram Mentioned in this episode: British Brand Accelerator

284 – Repair Is The New Cool with Thami Schweichler, United Repair Centre

Kate Hills is on a one-woman mission to save UK manufacturing.
In this podcast she shines the light on British brands and manufacturers, and goes behind the scenes of their businesses.
With tips, hints and tricks to help you manufacture in the UK and buy British.
Never has there been a more critical time to get behind 'made in Britain'.

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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 Instagram

295 – 4 Reasons NOT to Make in the UK

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

294 - Should you offer discounts to get people onto your mailing list?

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.

293 - Save English Fine Cottons

Today's guests are Andrea and David Courtney from Courtney & Co buttonmakersBack 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 Instagram

292 – Reviving the UK Button Making Industry with Courtney & Co Button Makers

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:Why I started Make it British and why I'm such a firm believer in UK manufacturing.The current UK manufacturing landscape.How the UK fashion and textile industry is made up of 1,000s of micro factories.How many garment factories there really are in the UK.The benefits of making in the UK.And why supply on demand is best done locally.
To see the video recording of this talk, go to makeitbritish.co.uk/microfactories Want to work together? Fill in this form so I can find out more about your business goals, and I'll get back to you with ways I can help. FURTHER RESOURCES Quiz: Are you ready to work with a UK factory?  HANDY LINKS British Brand Accelerator Make it British Website YouTube Instagram

291 - Micro Factories & Supply on Demand: UK Manufacturing at its Best

Make it British Podcast

284 – Repair Is The New Cool with Thami Schweichler, United Repair Centre

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