All Mix Blog

A round up of the week's stories from manufacturing and design: James Dyson on the hunt for the next great inventor, entries now open until August Scottish knitwear manufacturer has ' healthy order book ' British manufacturers losing out to foreign rivals UK 'most likely' base for new Rolls Royce plant And another thing... With the Southbank Centre 's Festival of Britain 60th anniversary celebrations underway you might want to have a look at a post from last September, featuring the original Festival of Britain catalogue .

'I am committed now to wearing Scottish knitwear. I consider it a political statement. It's not even that much more expensive than Chinese knits and it lasts a lot longer.' It's not often that we enjoy reading interviews with fashion designers but this one with APC chief Jean Touitou in Hint Fashion Magazine made us smile. A good weekend to all our readers. Factory image from Robert Noble

A recent short article in The Economist highlights the all too familiar issues surrounding the production of Fair Isle garments. Here are a couple of choice quotes: 'Only 70 people live on Fair Isle itself and only four of them knit. Each sweater takes about 100 hours; the island's annual production is about 30 sweaters, 200 hats and 30 scarves. These are sold only in the island shop, which is cleared out when the summer's first cruise ship calls, says Mati Ventrillon, a French-Venezuelan who runs the craft co-operative.' (The Economist) 'My ladies are in their 70s and 80s. They learned it from their grandmothers, but no one is learning from them.' (Ms. Teresa Fritschi, an American who runs a Scottish luxury-goods website and believes the island's knitters could earn much more if Fair Isle products enjoyed the same legal protection against imitation as Harris Tweed .) Image from Reel Knitting

We're keeping a close eye on developments at Marwood . Of great interest is this recent work documenting a visit to Berwick-on-Tweed and the studio of a tie-maker named Frances. We look forward to seeing more soon. (Image from Callum Toy )

'FAIR ISLE, United Kingdom — On the most remote inhabited island in Britain, 24 miles south of the Shetland mainland, 27 miles north of the Orkney Islands and 250 miles west of Norway, it’s always sweater season. With 600-foot cliffs overlooking the North Sea, thousands of acres of peat bog and a climate that’s perennially cool and damp, Fair Isle is a rugged place where wool is a way of life .' So starts an informative piece on the usually luxury brand-centric fashion site Business of Fashion. Briefly covering the history of the remote island's knitwear industry, the article discusses the 'missed opportunity' that some of the natives believe has passed their unique product by. 'Classic design, quality and authenticity matter,' the article continues, 'At the same time, increasingly informed and selective shoppers are asking more and more questions about where and how their products are made. They want to know that the whole life of their product was thou...