Timings

Speaker

13:00 – 14:00

Registration and lunch

14:00 – 14:15

Conference welcome

Cheryl Kindness, ‎former Design and Development Director, Camira

Setting Up a Business in Textiles

14.15 – 15:45

Starting up
Kirsty McDougall,  Co-founder, Dashing Tweeds
Kirsty is the co-founder of menswear textile brand Dashing Tweeds which won the Scottish Fashion Award for Textiles in 2012. She will reflect on her journey of establishing the company, from a small studio in Dalston, to its recently opened WC1 shop just around the corner from Saville Row. She is Senior Tutor in Weave at the Royal College of Art and she is also director of Kirsty McDougall Woven Textile Design. 

Fibre Colour and Yarn

Colour in Textiles
Beryl Gibson, Textile Consultant
Beryl is an established textile designer who trained at Central St Martins, Royal College of Art, Scottish College of Textiles which is now part of Heriot Watt, she consults with mills, spinners and retailers on woven design, colour, trend and merchandising. Working both in the UK and overseas, is based in a fully equipped design studio in London. Colour is a hugely important part of her work, she is a member of the Premiere Vision colour and fabric team amongst other international colour consultancies.

The importance of yarn
Stephen Sheard, former MD and founder of Rowan Yarns
Stephen Sheard co-founded Rowan Yarns in the 1970s amid the growing trend for British made. It focused on handknitting designs and yarn collections and grew through partnerships with leading designers like Kaffe Fassett and department stores Harrods, Liberty's, John Lewis Partnership and House of Fraser. Rowan was acquired by Coats Crafts in 1995, which saw Rowan expand into 42 different markets around the globe and become the world’s leading premium handknitting brand. Stephen will focus on the importance of yarn in the UK textiles industry and the importance of design and branding in building a textile company.

15:45 – 16:15

Break

Weaving and fabric finishing

16:15 – 17:45

Jacquard silk weaving for the luxury markets of the world
Richard Humphries, Director, Humphries Weaving
Richard is the founder of Humphries Weaving based in Sudbury, Suffolk, established in 1972. He specialises in figured designs for both apparel and upholstery, and his company’s fabrics adorn rooms of Royal Palaces and many of the world’s great houses.  He will talk about the intricacies of silk production in the UK, an art inherited from the original Huguenot weavers from Spitalfields. It is an ancient trade but with a modern application, and uses mainly pure silk and other natural fibres.  

Modern weaving technology
Gary Eastwood, Managing Director, Pennine Weavers
Gary runs Pennine Weavers in Keighley, which is known as the 'name behind the names' in the cloth industry. As commission weavers for the entire industry, they make cloth for all the very best names and firms in the UK fabric market. The mill in Yorkshire was planned with meticulous efficiency, and utilises state of the art technology in both warp preparation and weaving. 

Finishing the cloth
Paul Johnson, Managing Director, W.T. Johnson & Sons
It is often recognised that fabrics are made in the finishing, where the aesthetics of handle and drape, and indeed performance, are created. Paul is MD of this family mill, which, like Pennine Weavers, supports the majority of northern mills (including Scotland) in this vital last process before final delivery to the client. Paul will talk about the link between design and weaving and how the limits of the 'possible' are pushed in the finishing of fabric.

17:45 – 17:50

Closing remarks
Cheryl Kindness, ‎former Design and Development Director, Camira

17:50 – 19:15

Comfort break/ check-in

19:15 – 20:00

Drinks reception

20:00

Dinner
Keynote address:
Patrick Grant, Creative Director, Norton & Sons of Savile Row and TV’s British Sewing Bee judge.