Fashion and the textile industry in Leeds
Leeds was once at the very heart of the UK’s woollen and textile industries, supplying clothing to the entire Western world. Today the city’s mills have mostly been converted to bars, cafes or blocks of flats. Professor Regina Lee Blaszczyk has been looking at the rich history of textiles in Yorkshire and studying one Leeds textile company that has survived.
“My research focuses on the cultural history of business” says Professor Blaszczyk, “it’s about connecting the history of the creative industries to the big historical themes which impact on all of us, themes such as globalisation, material life and social identity, and consumer culture.”
Professor Blaszczyk was project Leader on the Enterprise of Culture, a €1M three year research project exploring the relationships between fashion as a cultural phenomenon and a business enterprise.
The project was based at the University of Leeds from 2013 to 2016, and the major research outputs — a series of books on colour, fashion as a business, textiles and the global fashion system, and trend forecasting — have just started to be released.
With the Marks & Spencer Company Archive already located on the University’s campus, as well as the region’s history at the heart of the UK’s woollen, worsted and textile industries, coming to Leeds perfectly positioned Professor Blaszczyk to look at one of the big omissions in fashion history — the story of the supply chain. This means studying how textiles are created, right from the growth or production of the textile fibres through to the sale of garments and the fashion industry.
The moon and back
Professor Blaszczyk’s research has focused on a collaborative project with Abraham Moon and Sons Ltd, one of the UK’s last surviving ‘vertical woollen mills’, based in Guiseley, part of greater Leeds. A vertical woollen mill brings all fabric production processes into one site — Abraham Moon and Sons brings together a whole community of dyers, spinners and weavers under one roof, employing the largest number of fabric designers in the UK woollen industry.
Since its establishment in 1837, the company has shown a remarkable resilience outliving the many other companies which have disappeared from Yorkshire. Today it draws on the strength of its heritage to supply cloth to international brands such as Burberry, Ralph Lauren and Paul Smith.
Professor Blaszczyk worked with Moon Managing Director, John Walsh, to produce a book called Fashionability, on the history of the company and more widely the global fashion system of the past 200 years. In the process, she uncovered connections woven into the history of Abraham Moon and Sons and the Yorkshire College of Science, the forerunner of the University of Leeds.
The College was founded in the 1870s, largely as a result of concerns among the region’s wool and textile industries that the rapid development of new technologies in Europe posed a threat to the local cloth trade. The College wasn’t set up to train spinners and weavers but rather those who would take up management positions within the industry. Over the years numerous graduates of the college ended up in key positions as managers and designers at Moon.
Many other Yorkshire brands went bust as the introduction of synthetic materials and competition from abroad harmed firms’ profits. In her book Professor Blaszczyk explored how the introduction of synthetic fibres into Yorkshire, an area dominated by the woollen manufacturing industry, impacted on the lives of its inhabitants and changed the face of the textile industry in the region. But Abraham Moon managed to weather this storm by diversifying into homeware and accessories.
Professor Blaszczyk’s research is paving the way for a new history of the British textile industry that moves away from the ‘dark satanic mills’ of popular imagining, to focus on stories of design, innovation, and creativity.
Her work has important ramifications for understanding how successful British companies competed in global markets in the past and how they continue to do so today, harnessing the British reputation for quality products to compete in the global market. Today British quality is augmented by British heritage and a sense of place.
A sense of place
Sonnet Stanfill, Curator of Textiles and Fashion at the V&A museum in London has worked with Professor Blaszczyk on the Enterprise of Culture project studying brands which focus on a sense of place:
“As fashion becomes ever more international, so the global market seems to value ever more highly the stories that are local.
Heritage brands go to extreme lengths to emphasise their company histories, to situate them in the town, city or country where they were founded and to highlight legacies of local craftsmanship and skills.”
The Enterprise of Culture project explored how certain products and styles have become closely entwined with certain regions or places. This applies to heritage fabrics such as tartan and tweed and the traditional fabrics produced at Abraham Moon, but also to more modern fashion trends. So hip-hop fashion is a relatively recent style of dress originating in New York City in the late seventies, but which today has spread to become a global phenomenon.
“Today less ‘dressing up’ means a greater homogenisation, an all pervasive casual style. But this in turn creates sub-cultures, hipsters, goths, the Chelsea set, those using fashion as defence against such a perceived ‘terrible informality!” says Professor Blaszczyk.
“At some price points it’s also because certain consumers are simply weary of globalisation — the same brands being available in Milan and New York becomes dull. Such consumers are looking for distinctiveness, and that’s what heritage provides. It’s not necessarily designer wear but upper end of the high street, M&S, Burberry, Hobbs, Boden.
“It’s a relatively small market segment, with undoubted potential to grow but there’s something very deliberate about this. These items are niche, they are heritage pieces, durable, not disposable. Moon draws on its heritage to serve this market.”
Professor Blaszczyk’s research uses the story of Abraham Moon & Sons as a jumping off point to show how the history of one company reflects larger issues within the textile and fashion industry. Professor Blaszczyk explains:
“The Enterprise of Culture project allowed us to break new ground, and to examine business relationships throughout the industry. From fashion’s core cities like Paris and London, between catwalk and the high street, and running through fibre makers, clothing manufacturers, and retailers, innovation is a common thread that has created a new and competitive global industry.”
