The FT had a Made in Britain special recently:
Made in Britain, part one: lighting
Building on the country’s strong heritage in industrial engineering, designers are experimenting with new materials and modern techniques. In addition, higher costs and demand for locally sourced products has increasingly seen the production process shift back to the UK from Asia.
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Made in Britain, part two: furniture design
British designers are in demand throughout the world for their skills and high quality craftsmanship. Events such as the London Design Festival and Clerkenwell Design Week attract increasingly large international audiences keen to see, and crucially, buy what UK furniture makers are producing.
This video that features furniture designer Sebastian Cox discussing the closure of furniture courses and Zeev Aram on the absurdity of exporting UK trained talent only to import their designs is also worth a watch.
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Middleport Pottery and its workers
Some may wonder why saving Middleport is so important, given that it is merely one of many factories in the area. The fact is, though, that Middleport is special. It is the only factory left that still uses the finest method (apart from hand-painting) of applying decoration – the 19th-century underglaze transfer printing method, which depends upon hand-engraving the patterns on to rollers.
Image above: Keith Flynn of Middleport Pottery taken by David Severn
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A recent video from Monocle visits Hiut Denim in Wales, as well as a lavender farm
