From a land where the traffic warden comes the second Tuesday of every month and there’s only one traffic light, the business design centre in London must have been quite the change for the staff of Bute Fabrics.
Its shell scheme stand giving no hint of the rich heritage this small fabric production company has; founded over fifty years ago by the fifth Marquess of the Isle of Bute and originally established to provide jobs on the island for the service men and women returning from the second war world.
The company has evolved through the decades; producing fabrics for Haute Couture in the 70’s, to working with Herman Miller in the 80’s and to now collaborating with Mr Tom Dixon (there’s no escaping him, even on an island on the Scottish West coast).
After talking to Douglas Graham, the softly spoken managing director, it became obvious there was a great amount of pride in the factory, the skills and the knowledge and the ability to never say no to a challenge. Their new product launched at Prima is a deceptively stretchy fabric called Galloway, achieved with a mix of wool and silk, and well suited to curvaceous applications.
The fabric is made to withstand one hundred thousand rubs, that’s a lot of sitting down, even for lazy people. And its not even a silly made up fact, the fabric is actually rubbed one hundred thousand times by a quality control machine called a Martindale. In the test the fabric is rubbed against a worsted fabric to simulate wear and tear. When three threads on the fabric have worn to the extent of actually breaking, it’s game over.
So next time you sit down, think of the quiet island of Bute, with its one traffic light and its infrequent traffic warden, where all is calm apart from the frantic machines rubbing away in the corner of the factory.