WEEKLY DIGEST

On the Carreducker blog they are covering their shoemaking course as it progresses (Carreducker)

The Great British Homebrew winner is announced and his beer is stocked in Nicholson's pubs (SIBA)

Brits do well in the Designs of the Year (Domus)

Proskills, the UK's manufacturing skills body is facing closure after its budget was cut (Telegraph)

A new exhibition in Birmingham to promote the work of the Jewellery Quarter (Made in the Jewellery Quarter)

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For other UK making stories (predominantly fashion based) in the press this week, see Make it British

Photo from the aforementioned Carreducker blog

WEEKLY DIGEST

Following a brief hiatus over Christmas and the new year, it's a bumper digest of UK manufacturing stories this week.

On the success of German manufacturing (Guardian)

UK manufacturing has reasons to be optimistic in 2012 (The Manufacturer)

UK manufacturing sector stagnant (Guardian)

Bentley posts 37% surge in sales (Guardian)

Meanwhile, Rolls-Royce records record sales thanks to Asian market (Guardian)

Welsh clothing label Howies is going independent once again (Howies)

Brands look to rebuild British textile industry (MEN)

Martin Parr's Black Country Stories opens on 20th January at The New Art Gallery Walsall (Multistory)

Open call for Designers in Residence 2012 (Design Museum)

A lovely profile of expert joiner Dave Thompson (Spitalfields Life)

Inside the Efgeeco factory, Balham (Andrews of Arcadia Scrapbook)

Picture from Spitalfields Life

WEEKLY DIGEST

A very short round-up of items on UK manufacturing and design that have caught the eye this week, starting with an informative video from Loake, above.

And, another video. This one is of the manufacturing process at J Price, the only remaining UK tennis ball manufacturer, based in Bath.

CRAFT KNOWLEDGE IN VIEWPOINT MAGAZINE (FEAT. MANUFACTURE & INDUSTRY)

Coverage for Manufacture & Industry in the new issue of Viewpoint magazine. The comprehensive article by M. Astella Saw focusses on consumers' growing interest in craft and how certain brands are responding. Please click on the spreads for a closer look (apologies for the lack of slickness.)

Here are a few select quotes from the piece:

"There seems to be a desire to understand more about where objects come from, how they are made and, consequently, how to make them." (Rosy Greenlees, executive director of the UK Crafts Council)

"As production has shifted further away from the consumer, you lose that sense of where things come from." (James Shaw, Albam)

"Fantasy doesn't look so appealing any more... Competitors will go one step further to show behind the scenes at their workshop, mill or ethical factory. They will outline that their provenance is finer, that they really are to be trusted, and hence that their brand and product are ones to purchase or invest in." (Hugo Macdonald, Monocle)

And a couple that M&I contributed:

"Big brands are too frightened of giving away their secrets. The most interesting brands are often smaller, younger companies, such as Marwood, a tie brand that has documented its research and development process from the start."

"So many people have lost touch with the costs of materials, production and distribution. If you understand these things you are much more likely to part with your money where value is shown."

PHILIP GREEN CONSIDERS MOVING PRODUCTION BACK TO UK FACTORIES

According to Reuters, Philip Green, the chief of the Arcadia Group, has joined the conversation on UK manufacturing. M&I thinks it is promising that someone of his stature should be considering shifting some production back to Britain.

"When the market is as it is you want to manage as near home as you can. That's why there's some debate about UK manufacturing and people actually opening some new factories," Green told the Retail Week conference.

"Is suddenly all our production coming back here? No. Is there an opportunity to do some production here? Hopefully there is and we're going to try," Green added.

Image from Cooper Stollbrand, Manchester (one of the factories that has recently produced items for Topshop, part of the Arcadia Group)

BRITISH MANUFACTURING : CABLE & CLEGG DO THE ROUNDS

Over the last week the gentlemen of Westminster have been out and about promoting British manufacturing. Above is a video of Nick Clegg at the Brompton factory in west London. Below are some of the key quotes from the speech Vince Cable gave last week:

'How many people do we meet who repeat the silly and inaccurate observation that "we don't make things any more"? This message has had a deeply corrosive effect in discouraging a younger generation from seeking a career in engineering or taking up industrial apprenticeships. It also helped encouraged the idea that young people should rather attempt to become a star footballer, an investment banker or a pop star - which can bring riches, but for a very small handful. The negativity about the perception of manufacturing has become a bigger problem than the reality.'

'There has to be a sense that manufacturing offers a good, attractive, career opportunity through skill training for school leavers and for graduates. Partly this is about capturing the imagination of what it will be like in the industries of the future. It is also about communicating that average salaries are comparable to those in the legal or financial services.'

ANGLEPOISE : A CASE STUDY

We recently came across this excellent case study on Anglepoise, courtesy of the Design Council:

Anglepoise is run by father and son team, John and Simon Terry. By 2001, the pair realised that if Anglepoise was to survive it was time to make a few harsh decisions. The most straightforward option, and one chosen by many UK manufacturers in recent years, would be to stick to the same products and distribution channels but move all production overseas – probably to China.

But the Terrys could see that this strategy might easily erode one of the company’s key remaining strengths – its reputation for precision design and engineering excellence.

‘Our margins were very small, and shrinking fast,’ explains Managing Director Simon Terry. ‘But we had a strong name, as well as our flawless design and engineering credentials. We wanted to find a way to reinvent the business to capitalise on these assets – not undermine them.’ There had to be another way.

The answer turned out to be a much more radical overhaul of the entire business. Anglepoise would start again, in a new location, as a high design, premium priced brand addressing an international marketplace.

Image from the excellent looking John's Adverts

A BRIEF INTERVIEW WITH OLD TOWN, CONDUCTED BY POST

As mentioned last week, we were lucky enough to visit Old Town in 2009 and recently we got in touch with some questions. The responses from Will (and Marie) at Old Town were as we had hoped: erudite, opinionated and informative.

The full handwritten answers are published above. Here are some of our favourite extracts:

On the last year at Old Town:

'Mainly engaged in producing 50 to 70 items per week. Between January and March we attempted to secure a shop nearer to our customers in London... We had a lovely new shop sign made by Ashley Bishop.'

On British manufacturing:

'I do get a sense that the issue, i.e the perceived advantage (of making products in the UK) has dropped off the radar as no one expects anything to be made here. I don't mean to sound negative but the kudos of being British made seems to have waned. I don't claim to have my finger on the pulse of current thinking so I could be totally wrong.'

On the UK Fashion & Textile Association's 'Let's Make it Here' website:

'I can't see where it links designers to factories/suppliers... Some years ago there was the International Wool Secretariat and the Cotton Institute which both had libraries of available fabric which was brilliant. Of course Britain can make it but will customers be prepared to pay for it?'

On their highlights of 2010:

'Miss Willey and I had a lovely week in Walberswick. (We) have nearly had an entire year without a television. Met a great hero (I will leave the mystery of this one to the proprietors of Old Town to impart if you get the chance to visit them - BF) who came to the shop. The cat was ill but made a full recovery. After a long, fruitless search for another machinist (we have seven at the moment), Larisa, who speaks little English, turned up at our door and she is fantastic.'

(A big thank you to Marie and Will at Old Town for their willingness and generosity in helping make this postal interview happen.)

JAMES DYSON: AN INDUSTRIALIST'S PLEA

Came across this in today's International Herald Tribune. Dyson has some pertinent points, the best of which are as follows:

'Getting rich by making things is sort of dirty. That view pervades our culture.'

(On how he was steered toward the classics and warned that if he did poorly in school he would end up in a factory.)

'It starts with the government, oddly... talking up and backing big engineering projects.'

(On how the UK can change deep-seated cultural views toward engineering and manufacturing.)

FOCUS ON BIRMINGHAM : JAGUAR LAND ROVER SAVED

Birmingham has received a sizeable amount of column inches over the last couple of weeks, mostly spurred by the Cameron chat. A good consequence of this has been the focus on manufacturing in the area, epitomised by this story from the BBC.

The future of Jaguar Land Rover's Solihull plant had never been in doubt, according to Gerard Coyne, regional secretary of Unite, due to it being the 'ancestral home' of the car maker.

Workers at the plant were clearly relieved. 'It's better than good. It's far more than we could have expected and I am gobsmacked,' said (the brilliantly named) Mick Jones, a paint shop worker from Erdington, Birmingham.

We enjoyed reading the comments from other workers here too.

MG TO RELAUNCH IN THE UK IN 2011

A piece in the Financial Times caught our eye today: 'MG, the Birmingham based carmaker will begin producing its first new car in 15 years, and from 2011 relaunch in the UK as a 'value' brand.'

'We've got to get across the ideas of having a great past with a bright, exciting future,' Guy Jones, MG Motor's UK sales and marketing director told John Reed of the FT.

According to the FT, if the new MG6 model proves successful then production at the Longbridge site will be increased, giving new life to the site that was once one of Europe's largest car plants.

Image from Old Classic Car

PAUL SMITH ON MANUFACTURING IN THE UK

Last night M&I had the pleasure of attending a discussion between Sir Paul Smith and Mr Colin McDowell at Selfridges department store, London.

Over a fascinating 74 minutes the gentlemen discussed Sir Paul's childhood, his father's humour, his (brilliant) lack of 'business model' and the importance of being genuine.

The highlight for us came in the Q&A afterwards though. We asked Sir Paul to expand on his recently reported lament on the decline in craftsmanship in the UK and whether his eponymous company was doing anything to help the situation. Here is what he had to say:

'Masses of British manufacturers have fallen by the wayside, many in the 1970s, during the period that the government and many people were thinking that the new way was to do with the service industries; to do with the computer, the mass produced, robotic way. So a lot of the mills just didn't have the money to reinvest because there wasn't the tax incentives to do so. Also, unfortunately a lot of it was their fault, they had gotten complacent and sat back.

We lost our motorbike industry because Japan reinvented the motorbike by doing something called the 'moped' which young people could ride around. Triumph, AJS, Norton, all these struggled, luckily Triumph survived. Some of it was our fault, some of it was the situation.

Therefore there's very few manufacturers left. We make shoes here, we make ties here, we make tie fabric, Yorkshire tweed, Worcester and Scottish tweed. But there's not a lot personally that I can do about it. What I do do is work largely in Europe, as opposed to China. I make things like trainers or jeans in China but basically we work in Britain or Italy.

A lot of it was complacency. If you want to be in this game, it is about today and tomorrow. Nobody cares about how good you used to be.'

A IS FOR ALLY

Thanks to Mr David Pinder for alerting us to this fine silent film of the manufacturing process of an Ally Capellino wallet.

HOORAH HENRY

'In the last quarter of 1997, manufacturing accounted for 21% of lending from British financial institutions while the property business (building, buying, renting) took up 16%. In the first quarter of 2010, the figures were 8.5% to manufacturing and 43.4% to property.'

This stark fact appeared in Mr. Ian Jack's piece in The Guardian on Saturday. It was not all doom and gloom however - Jack reported that Numatic, the Somerset based company that makes the oddly charismatic 'Henry' vacuum cleaner, has enjoyed 40 years of growth without a dip in turnover.

See the article in all its glory here.

(Images © Numatic International Ltd 2010)

'WHERE THINGS COME FROM AND HOW THEY'RE MADE'

The Milan Furniture Fair is over. According to Sight Unseen the documentation of the manufacturing process was evident throughout the show, something M&I was pleased to hear:

'The only trend worth writing home about was the diaristic glimpse into process that so many designers chose to offer this year, supplementing their finished products with sketches, models, and real-time demonstrations. Droog, Tom Dixon, and the Belgian gallery Z33 turned manufacturing into a spectator sport, churning out saleable objects on the spot, while the young Berlin duo Studio Hausen decided to forgo actual products entirely, outfitting their Satellite booth with a vitrine full of experimental bits and bobs from recent research projects. Certainly in some cases the conceit helped mask a lack of new production pieces, an economic consequence that plagued the fair in general, but mostly it celebrated curiosity, storytelling, and a growing interest in where things come from and how they’re made.'

(Photo from Sight Unseen)

THE ONLY UK MADE TRAINER

Bolton's Norman Walsh is releasing these rather handsome 100% Made in Britain trainers this week. Kindly, Walsh documented the process and granted us access to the photos.

D.S DUNDEE: A SHORT INTERVIEW WITH JIM PICKLES, DIRECTOR

Earlier this week Manufacture & Industry had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Jim Pickles, director of D.S DUNDEE at the inaugural Stitch menswear trade show at Old Billingsgate Market.

Pickles founded the traditional heritage label in the mid 90s in Scotland with Ollie Pilcher, a fashion photographer. After doing their own thing for a few years they relaunched the label in late 2007 and are now based in Dalston, London.

We were immediately drawn to the brand's 'Made in the UK' labels so asked them a few questions:

M&I: Where are you selling your wares?

JP: We've our own store on Spitalfields market, opposite the Ten Bells pub. It's been a pop-up situation but we're hoping to make it more permanent. We've been there since mid-December and it's gone brilliantly, we've virtually sold out.

M&I: Why Spitalfields for the store?

JP: A, it's a mile down the road from the studio and B, it's on the edge of the city so we get a good mix of the city boys, the tourist trade on Sundays and you also get the hip East London guys too. It's becoming a bit of a destination now with a few other mens brands having moved in, the new Covent Garden, I think.

M&I: Can you explain a little about how you source and produce your collections in the UK?

JP: Since we set out on the relaunch we've been all about sourcing traditional heritage fabrics and have been working closely with a lot of the tweed and woolen mills that still exist in Scotland, Yorkshire - the traditional roots of the industry. By visiting them we look through their stock collections and we've come across some really nice traditional fabrics like the Melton, the tweeds; we're now working with Harris Tweed on one of our styles. So we're getting hold of these traditional fabrics and putting them into a more contemporary fit and styling.

M&I: What is the importance of having a connection with the UK for the brand?

JP: It's really important to have a link to the UK in terms of either the cloth or the manufacturing. It's very difficult from a business perspective to have both because then it becomes a very expensive product and a lot of the time it is very difficult to find the manufacturers who will help you out, especially when you're dealing with smaller numbers as you're starting out. Sometimes you just can't find manufacturers full-stop. In terms of the knitwear, we're working with a factory up in the Scottish borders that produce for us. The tailoring, all the manufacturing we get done in Portugal but using the UK cloths. The footwear, we're working with Cheaney of Northampton, that's been fantastic for us this season, we've had some very good orders placed on those. The Fair-Isles are hand-knitted up in the Shetland Isles, by a company called Jamieson's. They've been going down particularly well with the Japanese market.

M&I: What are the benefits of D.S DUNDEE being made in the UK?

JP: You've got the menswear consumer who works against the high-street, mass-produced, sweatshop thing. They want to buy into a brand like us, where they can buy a piece that will last them season after season. They'll maybe spend the same amount on one piece as they would on several high-street items, but they will only last a couple of years before being out of shape and ruined in the wash.

M&I: Do you work to a seasonal cycle?

JP: We do the two main collections, Spring/Summer (S/S) and Autumn/Winter (A/W). With the fabrics that we use, because it's British stuff, it is heavier cloth as the sheep are more hardy. Therefore the A/W season is stronger for us but we're going to try and make the S/S season just as good by focussing on accessories and a Scottish nautical theme. We'll be doing luggage, we're doing a collaboration with a UK trainer manufacturer, Mors. We're keen on the dual UK brand thing.

D.S DUNDEE's store can be found at 105A Commercial Street, Spitalfields Market, London E1 6BG

For a full list of stockists click here.

Also worth a look is the D.S DUNDEE blog, we particularly enjoyed the field trip to Marling & Evans.

Picture from D.S DUNDEE's flickr resource.

MADE IN BIRMINGHAM: THE EXHIBITION OF LOCAL MANUFACTURES AND NATURAL HISTORY

In 1886 Birmingham photographer John Collier documented the Exhibition of Local Manufactures and Natural History.

The selection of exhibits was limited 'to the leading manufacturers in their respective branches, or to any firm producing a speciality, with the view of showing the great variety of trades, and the excellence of work produced.'

We were very disappointed to learn that we missed a mini-retrospective of the original exhibition last year. However, the accompanying booklet, created by Brighton-based Studio Makgill, is enough to whet the appetite.

BOOK OF THE MONTH

Title: Manufacturing Processes For Design Professionals

Author: Rob Thompson

Publisher: Thames & Hudson

Year of Publication: 2007

Image from design blog spotd.it

TW ABLETT, SHEFFIELD

Click on the title for a pleasing article about the working processes employed by Mr. Trevor Ablett, who makes pocket knives in Sheffield.

Written by Mr. Jon Henley and published in yesterday's Guardian 'Work' section.

Thanks due to Mr. Mike Knight for nudging us in the direction of this informative piece.

Photo credit: Christopher Tomond