Luxury UK woollen mill AW Hainsworth has launched a new service enabling designers from the worlds of fashion, interiors and costume to develop their own short run bespoke fabrics.

The bespoke woollen jacquard service utilises the company’s fully vertical manufacturing capabilities and can draw on its hundreds of years of manufacturing knowledge.

Until now, designers have been unable to translate their own brand identity or unique aesthetic onto woollen jacquard in small volumes. The minimum run of just 25 metres, which can be split over multiple designs, allows small brands as well as major design houses to source and develop fabric ranges that are entirely exclusive to them, while at the same time reducing the wastage of oversampling.

“We are thrilled to launch this service and provide our customers with the unique opportunity to create their own entirely exclusive ranges without a huge commitment to stock and investment, and the ensuing wastage,” says Julie Roberts, marketing manager at AW Hainsworth. “Our jacquard looms can produce high detail pattern and imagery, double cloths, intricate designs and simple textures, allowing our customers to fully infuse their own brand or project aesthetic into the cloth, whether flamboyant and modern, or simple and classic.”

The service was initially road-tested in a joint project with Future Fashion Factory and the University of Leeds, providing proof of concept and establishing the service as commercially and creatively viable.

The first to take it up was York-based Designer Matty Bovan, a finalist of The Woolmark Prize 2021. He created five intricately patterned jacquard fabrics for use in his Autumn/Winter 2021 ‘Odyssey’ collection.

www.hainsworth.co.uk