2017: The Year Cotton Came Home

2017 ended on a high note for English Fine Cottons

A special Boxing Day news report by the BBC sparked a huge wave of interest in our story and support for our ongoing quest to help sew the UK’s cotton industry back together.

The report followed the process of a shirt being made from our yarns, entirely in the North West of England, and featured some of our partner manufacturers – Blackburn Yarn Dyers (BYD), John Spencer Textiles Ltd and Private White VC.

It highlighted the work we’ve done in 2017 to relink the cotton supply chain, which is summed-up in our video 2017: The Year Cotton Came Home.

Working with other manufacturers, we’ve been able to help customers produce their cotton products solely in the UK. While many products are still being designed and tested, a number of beautiful items made from English Fine Cottons yarns made it to market in 2017, including:

• ‘Made in England’ bed linen by Peter Reed, in Lancashire, and the 1934 collection by Sunspel, in Nottingham.
• Beautiful cotton scarves created by Oscha Slings – woven by Sam Dawes in Lancashire and manufactured at the company’s HQ in Scotland.
• A technical base-layer sweatshirt by motorcycle clothing ‘engineers’, Ashley Watson – knitted by Discovery Knitting in Leicestershire and made-up in London.
• Three Bears Yarn’s Passion range of coloured threads for knitting, weaving and embroidery – dyed by their parent company, Blackburn Yarn Dyers.
• Striking fashion prints produced by Standfast and Barracks – designed and finished at their factory in Lancaster.
• Here at English Fine Cottons, we introduced our range of shirting fabrics, which were dyed at BYD and woven at John Spencer Textiles Ltd in Burnley.

In 2018, we expect to be able to share news of a host of new products available to buy, including our range of socks manufactured in Manchester, some special products by Private White VC and an exciting new sports range by a rugby fashion brand.