WEEKLY DIGEST

Lovely film on two London based craftsmen - one making gin, the other, mirrors (Boat via OEN)

The biggest news of the last week: Aquascutum's Corby factory to close (FT)

More on Aquascutum (Guardian)

And, on a more positive note, James Eden of Private White V.C is looking to invest in the factory in question (MEN)

FACTORY VISIT NO. 8: ALFRED DUNHILL, WALTHAMSTOW (PART TWO : MASTER CRAFTSMAN RICK READ)

The Alfred Dunhill factory in Walthamstow, East London, employs several master craftspeople. Rick Read is one of them. Above the main factory floor, in a quiet, well lit room, Rick creates bespoke items of great beauty.

Rick, who hails from south of the River Thames, has worked for Alfred Dunhill for ten years. He started his career in 1966, since when he has created products for the likes of Tanner Krolle and Chanel. Rick served his apprenticeship at Marshall and Company. He explains that company's demise, "they did desk sets and the like. Since desk sets have fallen by the wayside, so have they. More's the pity."

With companies such as Marshalls going out of business and the likes of Tanner Krolle being brought out (by Alfred Dunhill), many of the employees at Alfred Dunhill have worked for a variety of household names. It strikes me as being a very similar story to that which I heard at Globe-Trotter.

We talk to Rick about some of the items he has made over the years. He tells us of his pride at seeing Tanner Krolle briefcases still being used by business people on the tube. The items he makes are made to last.

The reason that the items which Rick and his colleagues make last so long is the attention to detail and understanding of materials. Rick talks us through the prototyping process, where items are mocked up in a cheap material called 'salpa'. "It’s very cheap, you can make the job up, get the proportions right, send it back to the designer, they can draw on it, cut it, do whatever. We’ll probably do another in salpa to check it’s right. Then we’d do one in old leather before the final one in proper leather."

The proper ones are very impressive. Flawless leather goods that are the result of Alfred Dunhill's exacting standards in materials, the craftsman's skill and understanding the customer's needs. Rick tells us about a recently made alligator skin wallet: "It came out so well… It’s like anything you do, if you make the smallest mistake, you’re doing some decorating indoors say, your eye goes to it (the mistake) straight away. This wallet… it was pukka! Spot on. So good he (the customer) wants another one."

While leather goods continue to attract healthy sales, other items no longer have the relevance that they used to. "There were 300 craftsmen making pipes at one point here. You used to go to the football years ago and everyone would be wearing a cap and smoking a pipe!" The pipe business does still exist, under the name White Spot.

Conversation moves on to apprenticeships and education. "All the guys downstairs are all long serving, it’s very hard to get anyone new to do crafts," Rick tells us, "I think the reason is that it costs a lot of money to train someone up and there’s nothing to tie them to that company. They could finish their apprenticeship and go ‘I think I’ll try this on my own’. They could take their skills away. It’s up to the company to make it worthwhile staying."

Rick tells us that he is to retire in a couple of years. They are already looking for his replacement - it is a long process to find the right person. "People want the big bucks. If you go on to an apprenticeship you need to be prepared to be on a low income," Rick says. The person in question would need to 'gel straight away' in the small workshop that Rick shares with Tomasz Nosarzewski (who has taken up a kind of residency over the last year or so at Bourdon House, Dunhill's Mayfair HQ in order to bring the craft closer to the consumer). "They don't need great skills," Rick continues, "it's just a particular fit."

I suggest that it could be tough to find that elusive person, what with the required skills not being taught in schools as they used to be. Rick nods. "The school I went to – there was a drawing office, there was a metal workshop, a wood workshop, a forge… all of these things pushed you in that direction if you weren’t academic. But to do this you have to know drawing, you have to know measurements… you need to know quite a bit before you can actually put those skills in to the hands and do the job."

We talk about the difference between making and designing. "There was a college in Hackney, Cordwainers. But it has moved more towards design… everyone wants to be a designer you know? Design to me... ideas just keep coming around and around. The amount of times I hear someone say ‘oh, we’ve got a great idea, look at this’ and I think ‘oh yeah’ (Rick rolls his eyes) … ‘I think that’s in the cupboard at the bottom!’ These things, they come around, get tweaked up." He has a point.

-

All photos by Robin Mellor

GRAYSON PERRY ON CRAFT & AUTHENTICITY

I finally made it down to the British Museum yesterday to see the much lauded Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman exhibition by Grayson Perry.

A couple of quotes stood out:

'Craftsmen make artefacts they think will appeal to visitors from abroad. Sometimes they get it wrong in a charming way. Creativity is often just mistakes.'

'I love fakes for they make us think about what it is we see in the authentic. About how much of our awe in front of a great historical artefact is in its inherent beauty and how much is to do with its auspicious provenance.'

-

The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman runs until the 26th February 2012. (Note that tickets are now near impossible to come by, but don't let that stop you trying - it is as good as the reviews say.)

Photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images Europe from Zimbio

MAX LAMB ON HANDMADE CRAFTSMANSHIP

"The communication is a really important part of it, the object doesn't always speak for itself... Although I try to make it as visible as possible; the process used to get to the end result is understandable just by looking at the object... But when you support the physical object with a documentary of how it was made, immediately people can engage with it on a deeper level... understanding how the raw material was transformed in to a functional object."

Max Lamb on handmade craftsmanship, via Protein

WEEKLY DIGEST

Stoke's potteries have a place in our recovery (Tristam Hunt)

An extract from 'The Busy Hives Around Us' (Esoteric London)

Thornbridge Brewery launches beer to help save Sheffield's Portland Works (SIBA)

Robin Wood's response to the recent UK culture posters: Craft is Great Britain (Robin Wood)

Design Council's 'Designing Demand' offers aid to small to medium manufacturers (Design Council)

ON CRAFTSMANSHIP, BY CHRISTOPHER FRAYLING : A REVIEW

On Craftsmanship covers impressive ground over its short 144 pages. Christopher Frayling was in charge of the Arts Council from 2005-2009 and his inherent knowledge of art and design makes this book a joy to read.

A key battle that Frayling fights throughout is that of rethinking the meaning of craft - an 'over-used and much abused term'. Some of this abuse comes from brands - he mentions recent campaigns from Levi's and Camper that use the well soiled word.

However, advertising and branding tends to tap into the current feeling and Frayling acknowledges from the off that craftsmanship has 'again become fashionable'. He cites Richard Sennett's 2009 book The Craftsman as 'timely and even urgent'.

Frayling's eductional background (he taught History at the University of Bath) gives On Craftsmanship some decent weight but never alienates the reader with it. Instead, it couples references to the past with an eye very much on the future. For instance, George Sturt's The Wheelwright's Shop, is lauded (it describes events in a wheelwright's in late 1800s Farnham, Surrey) as 'of considerable interest to anyone who seeks to write about the practice of a particular craft, from an historical or a contemporary point of view'.

According to Frayling hand-work and mass-production existed side by side into the late nineteenth century. 'The specifically English experience of industrialisation involved a close interaction of the two... it was not simply a matter of industry taking over from craft, but of craft within industry'. Frayling returns to this point with the contemporary example of smaller workshops in Italy working together and keeping stable through periods of economic turmoil due to their flexibility. He goes on to write of the possible future for this kind of making: 'Industries of a few people, creating local networks with new kinds of tools, maybe linking with larger networks'.

In one chapter that documents a public dialogue with David Pye (a craftsman, teacher and writer) Frayling talks of the crafts 'edging rapidly... in the direction of abstract art'. Originality over all else seems to be his concern. He finishes the talk with a quote from the poem 'Things Men Have Made' by DH Lawrence that is worthy of sharing and neatly sums up the importance of making:

Things men have made with wakened hands,

and put soft life into are awake through years with

transferred touch,

and go on glowing for long years.

And for this reason, some old things are lovely

warm still with the life of forgotten men who made

them.

The final chapter of the book is entitled 'The New Bauhaus' (which is also part of the subtitle of the book) and is a fantastic blueprint for the future of design education. Let's hope Vince Cable et al read it.

Thanks to George at Oberon for sending a copy of the book, it is much appreciated.

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."

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.'

ERCOL - MARGARET HOWELL REISSUES

'It is the combination of quality and craftsmanship and a straightforward, yet elegant approach to the design that attracts me to this particular period of Ercol furniture and has led me to re-evaluate Ercolani's original designs' (Margaret Howell, 2004)

OLIVER SPENCER & ANOTHER COUNTRY

Another Country? No, still very much to do with products made in the UK, fear not. M&I attended a tastefully modest event at Oliver Spencer's shop on Lambs Conduit St, London last night. On display was a fine array of understated furniture from Dorset based Another Country. We couldn't hang around for long but enjoyed what we saw and appreciated the hospitable nature of the hosts.

Thanks to Oliver Spencer (lovely shop with some excellent clothing on a very pleasant road in WC1N) and Another Country for the invite.

The image above is from the excellent Another Country gallery. We took some pictures that are not quite as good and they can be found here.

A WEEKEND TREAT: THE FESTIVAL OF BRITAIN

For images of this handsome programme in full see our new Flickr

PAUL SMITH LAMENTS THE 'DECLINE IN CRAFTSMANSHIP' IN THE UK

Nice interview with Sir Paul Smith by Simon Usborne in The Independent on Monday. Here's a small extract:

"I look at this bike (a Mercian) and see something that was handmade in England by a small business," Smith says. "And that's something I mourn – the fact that there are now so few small companies like that. I worry about the pressure young people feel to earn a certain amount of money or to achieve a certain status. To be a stonemason and only to carve as much stone as your hands can manage isn't attractive anymore."

Image of early 1980s Mercian catalogue cover from Chris 531 on Flickr

TALES OF THE UNSKILLED

Two stories have caught the eye over the last week or so. The Financial Times reported that luxury goods houses are lamenting the lack of skills amongst workers. Meanwhile, Katie Allen in The Observer wrote about politicians competing to support the manufacturing sector. Allen's article touches on the lack of skilled workers in the UK today.

Picture credit: Humphrey Spender/Getty Images

(Employees at the Austin car factory in Birmingham in 1939.)

GONE PICNICKING

What with this fine weather M&I's mind is turning towards the great outdoors. We read about the intriguing work of Williams British Handmade last week and are particularly fond of the sturdy looking picnic hamper case.

JAMES BOWTHORPE CYCLED AROUND THE WORLD ON A BROOKS

South Londoner James Bowthorpe cycled around the world last year. He completed the 18,000 mile ride across 20 countries in less than six months, beating the world record by 20 days. He also raised a sizeable amount of money for What’s Driving Parkinson’s, a research clinic at King’s College Hospital in London in the process.

Obviously, cycling over 100 miles a day for half a year requires a quality saddle so it was no surprise to read this in The Financial Times (Weekend of 19/20th September 2009):

'I'm sitting on a Brooks saddle that I have had for about 10 years. If you have time to wear one in and are prepared to do a minimum of upkeep (rubbing in a spot of dubbin every now and then) they're unbeatable.'

Image from the fantastic website of Mr. Jim Langley (although we do advise readers to turn the volume down when visiting).

FIELD TRIP NO. 2: HOLT, NORFOLK

Back in December 2009 we had the good fortune to visit Old Town, a clothing retailer based in the quiet market town of Holt in Norfolk.

During our brief visit we talked to shop-owner Marie about branding, ink stamps, Alexis Petridis' recent piece in the Guardian Weekend, manufacturing processes and the ridiculousness of certain brands attempts to create 'history'.

Old Town's clothing is truly made in England. Marie told us that they source a great deal of their cloth from a mill in Burnley, Lancashire. Garments are cut in the workshop above the store.

The visual merchandising of Old Town sits firmly on the right side of the fine line between twee and authentic. The ordering system, whereby you select your fabric from a swatch book and the garment is produced within four weeks, is a charming way to ensure that no deadstock is produced.

We left with a pair of grey stovepipes in stout twill (fortunately they had a pair in stock that fitted perfectly) and hopes of returning in the future.

(Also of note is Old Town's homegrown publication, The Evening Star)

Address:

49 Bull Street, Holt, Norfolk NR25 6HP

Telephone:

01623 710001

A QUOTE

'My clients want to know the provenance of a piece and who designed and made it. They’re interested in craftsmanship and the processes behind the making of a piece.'

London-based interior designer Suzy Hoodless in the Financial Times.

HAPPISBURGH LIGHTHOUSE PT. 2

HAPPISBURGH LIGHTHOUSE PT. 1

Made in England, 1790. The only independently run lighthouse in Britain. M&I had the pleasure of a tour from Happisburgh Lighthouse Trust on a crisp winter's afternoon. During our short visit we learnt about the skilled craft behind the glasswork, the reasons for lighthouses' unique paintwork and how Anneka Rice came to help the village.

THE BELL BOYS

Ian McMillan enjoys the 'sonerous concentration' of The Whitechapel Bell Foundry, the makers of Big Ben.

This BBC Radio 4 documentary includes a great interview with master founder Alan Hughes, who talks about visiting bell towers as a child with his father and his route to employment at the foundry. 'I decided to join the company in a moment of absent mindedness, it never occurred to me that I would do anything else.'

Documentary available until Tuesday 10th November at 2pm on BBC iPlayer (click title to listen to the documentary.)