PEOPLE | SHOWS & EXHIBITIONS | PLACES

FABRIC SOURCING

Oct 09 Reid and Taylor, Langholm, Dumfriesshire, Scotland.

After getting in touch with the supplier direct they invited me up to see their fabrics and see whether I was interested in any of their cloth. They were really friendly in their email correspondence and said they could show me round their production rooms. They show at Premiere Vision so
The visit was really successful; it was really interesting to see how the fibre and yarn was transformed and woven slowly into cloth. Their fibre house was full which was nice to see. They actually said that they source most of their fibre from Italy though which was slightly disappointing because of it being a Scottish company but Italy also stands for the highest quality so very good in a way.
The girl showing us around was really helpful, she told us that they have a been commissioned by Chanel for some of their fabrics. this amazed me; she said theat they pushed and pushed the price down and couldn't understand why the mark up was so high on their skirts that they produced from the fabric. Their standard price ranged between 10 and 80 per mtre for their fabric although it wasn't often that theywent over £60 per metre.
Unfortunately they didn't have the double cloth that I had purchased at Cloth House. They said that it was so old it might not be in th records. At this point I phoned Cloth House and ordered the rest of the Reid and Taylor Cloth before it sold out. They had 6 metres left which came to about £150 delivered. Although this was a disapointment I was still shown their surplus stock room. I was told I could have most of it . I started to select some of the fabrics whih sat best with my colour palette and season. The fabric quality was consistently great and it all felt luxurious.
I picked out 3 rolls and they said I could have them for free and no-one would even notice that they were missing. I picked a fine grey mohair wool suiting, linen cotton mix cloth and a cashmere wool, navy blue. It wasn't a wasted journey; rather an insight into the part of the process that as a designer you don't necessarily see.