On the 20th October the Bulmer and Lumb Group attended an event held by Cambridge Members. The evening was held in the wonderful surroundings of the British Embassy in Seoul, it was well attended by their customers and media, alongside our colleagues from the Uk industry. Several suits were on display made out of Bulmer and Lumb fabric; these were on display in their own room, one of the cloths was a replica of the cloth we made for Prince William’s wedding.
The Ambassador and his wife were in attendance, giving their support to the Uk textile industry. The Ambassador, Mr Uden, also gave a speech, outlining the importance that Britain has in South Korea and that the British made product has a lot of value in the Far East.
Cambridge Members use Timothy Everest as there Design Consultant and he was in attendance. Our group Chairman and one of Sales Directors spoke to him at length about his views on the high quality of product made in the Uk and the bright future the Uk has in manufacturing luxury worsteds for a global market.
On the 26th October the Bulmer and Lumb Group hosted an evening of celebration with our much valued customers in Japan. The event was held at the British Embassy in Tokyo on the edge of the royal park in the centre of the city.
Bulmer and Lumb were joined by their agents, D-Vision O, and many of the group’s loyal customers for drinks and canapés. The group chairman, Bill Waterhouse, gave a short speech, outlining that the group was here to stay, supplying some of the world’s best cloth in Japan and around the globe.
The Bulmer and Lumb Group is pleased to announce the acquisition of a worsted spinning mill, originally the Merinotex factory based on the outskirts of the central Polish town of Torun. The group has worked in partnership for some years but the purchase will enhance the group’s market leading potential. The group can closely control the high quality of its fine worsted spinning using wool dyed in the vessels at company headquarters in Bradford. Due to its excellent road links the yarn spun at Bulmer and Lumb Poland can be back at our weaving mills in Bradford and Huddersfield in 2 to 3 days. The addition of a fine worsted spinning mill cements the groups future as a UK owned vertical textile company.
The Bulmer and Lumb Group has had the privilege of being asked to dye, comb, spin, weave and finish a selected bale of wool into the luxury fabric that Taylor and Lodge produces. This will then be given as a wedding gift for Prince William and Kate Middleton to celebrate their marriage. The raw wool for the fabric was supplied by the members of the Australian Wool Growers, each donating a few kilos of their finest merino wool from this season.
The fabrics chosen for this special event are a modern version of our award winning Lumb’s Golden Bale flannel cloth as originally made for H Lesser cloth merchants for their exclusive clients along Savile Row. And a clear cut classic pin stripe, a suitable fabric for an English gentlemen’s wardrobe. After a consultation with Anderson and Sheppard, who are going to tailor the final garment, we decided on a shade of medium charcoal, which is in high demand by some our most discerning customers. The cloth was finished by the group fabric finisher Holmfirth Dyers.
The wool bale will make a total of 27 suit lengths; the remaining 26 will be purchased by members of the global wool industry and all proceeds will be donated to the Royal Flying Doctors Service in Australia.
Please click on the links below to read some of the articles about this in the media;
HRH The Prince of Wales recently visited Bulmer & Lumb Group Headquarters at Buttershaw in Bradford, as part of the Campaign for Wool of which he is patron. On arrival, the Prince was greeted by the Group Chairman, Bill Waterhouse & Sales Director, David Lister.
After meeting the rest of the board of directors, the Prince was escorted on a tour of the site by Group Managing Director, David Midgley. As Bulmer & Lumb is the only textile manufacturer remaining in the UK which processes wool from raw material to finished fabric, this included top dyeing, combing & weaving.
The party then returned to the board room, where the Prince viewed samples of the all the products made by Bulmer & Lumb. Gifts of an exclusive Lumb’s Golden Bale Flannel suit length & an Escorial Ladies’ Shawl, manufactured at Taylor & Lodge in Huddersfield, were presented to him by Jacob Midgley.
On the 21st and 22nd October our Sales Director, William Halstead, presented the Taylor and Lodge brand to the Chinese market. Starting with an interview session with a large group of Chinese media, followed by a preview of the CBN TV documentary filmed during September at our Huddersfield site. The 22nd involved presenting the Taylor and Lodge collection to the Wenzhou Garment Makers followed by one to one meetings with potential customers.
The Bulmer and Lumb Group is committed to Gold Woolmark, and since the initiative was announced, has produced a new range of Lumb’s Golden Bale cloths, seeking inspiration from the Taylor & Lodge archives, which date back to 1883. The new range is made from the finest merino wools sourced from Australia, dyed, combed and then spun into yarn in Bradford, finally woven and finished in Huddersfield. Taylor and Lodge and Lumb’s Golden Bale is a combination which guarantees quality. Modern weaving and finishing machinery alongside age old craft skills ensures that Huddersfield cloth remains at the pinnacle of fine worsted cloth manufacture.
The Bulmer and Lumb Group has joined the Campaign for Wool with its patron HRH The Prince of Wales. The Campaign brings together an alliance of farmers, manufacturers and retailers, with the aim of educating the consumer of the benefits and versatility of using wool. For further details on the Campaign please visit www.campaignforwool.org
Each month in the Knowledge, Twist outlines in an easy-to-understand way the properties, benefits and uses of some of the world’s most desirable luxury fabrics, yarns and fibres. Here, Robert McQuillan outlines the provenance and outstanding quality of Lumb’s Golden Bale cloth, and explains why demand for this fabric is growing among discerning consumers.
As luxury consumers yearn more and more for products that offer authenticity, originality and unique craftsmanship, here at Taylor & Lodge, a world-renowned weaver of high-end cloths based in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire,UK, we are finding that interest in the heritage and provenance of luxury fabrics is growing more than ever. Our Lumbʼs Golden Bale qualities are receiving particularly strong attention at present, and we are constantly receiving enquiries about the story behind this exquisite cloth.
Lumbʼs Golden Bale is an internationally recognised standard for worsted cloth of exceptional quality – the fabrics are created only using the best wools available. A Super 100ʼs cloth of 18 microns in weights of 280-350 gms, Lumbʼs Golden Bale is a relatively heavy fabric,easy to cut and make up, and has a look that is strongly associated with Savile Row.
There’s a widely held feeling that the Yorkshire textile industry is no more – mills closed, workers laid off, production transferred to Asia. Dead and buried in other words.
No-one could miss the fact that much of it has vanished from the landscape of West Yorkshire, especially in Bradford, the one-time wool capital of the world.
Many mills remain, but have been turned into something else. Fifty years ago, 140,000 people worked in them. Today, the figure for textiles is down to about 2,000. The real decline set in during the early 1960s and a historian of the industry describes what has happened since as a catalogue of woe.
This may be true of the mass market. But Yorkshire never lost its footing in the top-of the-range niche. In the 1950s, Huddersfield cloth was renowned as the finest in the world.
