The Princess of Wales’s visit to a textile mill had her marvelling at the fabric used for her husband’s wedding military uniform and she loved the smell of the wool used in the process.
Kate visited Yorkshire manufacturer AW Hainsworth and was given a guided tour of the business, from yarn to fabric, at the firm which has a close association with her family.
The company, based in the small town of Pudsey, makes textiles for a range of clients, from fashion houses like Gucci and woven felt for Steinway pianos to the red tunics worn by guardsmen, and bought a woollen manufacturer from the princess’s family in the 1950s.
Amanda McLaren, AW Hainsworth’s managing director, said after the visit: “Her love for textiles was clearly there.
“She was commenting that she loved the smell of wool, for example.
“She was fascinated by some of the traditional processes and also things like the dye house where she could see the fabric that is worn by the Buckingham Palace guards…being dyed red, and it really brought home to her the intricacies of the process and the skills of our people.”
For his 2011 wedding, William wore his Irish Guards military uniform, reflecting his role at the time as Colonel of the Irish Guards.
Wearing an emerald green Burberry suit, Kate chatted to Zeb Akhtar, senior weaver trainer, who talked her through the process of weaving the fabric for the military tunics.
Later Mr Akhtar said the royal guest had asked if the machines were ever stopped: “And as we were talking one of the ends broke and the machine stopped automatically.”
As the visit came to an end she was shown a dummy wearing the full guardsman outfit of bearskin, scarlet tunic and trousers, and ran her hands over the merino wool fabric of the jacket.
Rachel Hainsworth, a seventh generation of the family-run business who sits on AW Hainsworth’s family council, chatted to Kate about Lupton & Co, the woollen business they bought from Kate’s paternal family.
She said about Kate: “She knows about the history, her parents have been talking to her about it,” and she was interested to hear how the Lupton company specialised in “collar Melton” a piece of woollen cloth used to give body and definition to a jacket collar.
Ms Hainsworth added: “It was a time when it was an amalgamation of all the textile industries, when people were struggling and we were starting to get the imports from overseas.”
Later, the Princess of Wales continued the textiles theme to her day, crossing the Pennines to visit Standfast & Barracks, a printworks dating back to 1924, in Lancaster.
The firm, now part of the Sanderson Design Group, is renowned for its heritage in textile design and creativity and employs around 160 staff to design and print 35,000 metres of printed fabrics each week.
Kate spent more than an hour touring the factory, speaking to staff and directors, who gave her a demonstration of their work, from conventional flatbed printing, of the design known as, ‘Strawberry Thief’ to rotary printing of a design, ‘Mr Fox’, to printing the design ‘Hollyhocks’ using digital printing, a more sustainable technique, with each metre of fabric produced using approximately 80 litres less water than the traditional way.
While on the visit, Kate also met the founders of House of Hackney, a British interiors brand, Frieda Gormley and Javvy M Royle, who champion print and craftsmanship, to preserve specialist age-old trades.
They are now collaborating with Standfast & Barracks, to pioneer sustainable, traceable materials in their work.
Mr Royle said: “The whole re-gen thing is quite important to us, so we have been on this journey looking at all our fabrics.”
Kate said: “There is a growing need, isn’t there? And some understanding, from the consumer, about where their products come from.”
Later, Kate rounded off her tour by meeting Peter Elliston, the factory’s longest-serving employee, who will clock up half a century at the firm in November.
His granddaughter, Emily May Catto, aged 7, handed over a picture she had drawn and a posy of flowers to Kate, who crouched down to speak to the beaming youngster.
Emily shares an interest in dance with Kate’s own daughter, eight-year-old Princess Charlotte.
Mr Elliston said: “She asked her about what colours she liked. She said keep up dancing. She told us about her daughter, Charlotte, she likes ballet and tap.”
