TEXTILE FABRICS

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 138, 9 December 1930, Page 13

TEXTILE FABRICS

FILLIP TO BRITISH CLOTHES

(From "The Post's" Representative.) LONDON, 31st October. Mr. X H. Symonds, president of the British Fashions and Fabrics Bureau, writes: "Evidence that British, fashions and fabrics are at last gaining favour with British women is afforded by the latest Board of Trade returns. Imports from abroad of women's and girls' garments of woven fabrics—costumes, dresses, coats, skirts, and the like—were £40,----427 leas for August, and £40,764 less for September, than for the corresponding months of last year. These figures, though not great in themselves, are an. encouraging sign that our manufacturers aro beginning to satisfy tho increasingly critical attitude of the consumer in. regard to style. It is to 'style' that we must look to regain our prewar position as the world's premier manufacturers of textile fabrics. "I have given demonstrations, from time to time, of the powerful influence of style applied to fabrics from Manchester, Nottingham, Bradford, and other parts of this country, all with profitable results to manufacturers and retail distributors alike, but it remained for a recent display in London of knitwear made from Australian (and New Zealand) wool, spun in. Yorkshire, woven and manufactured by the firm of Wolsey in Leicestershire, to prove the power of style to revive an industry as a whole, which was almost on the point of extinction. Immediately following the London, display of Eoville fashions in Wolsey fabrics, the whole knitwear industry of the country took on a new lease of life, and to-day is in a healthy condition again. I.make that statement on the authority of ouv leading clistiiliiitnrs, Tinihi retail nncl wholesale. .1

am convinced that the magnetic influence of style can revive prosperity for our third largest industry, and thereby materially assist in the restoration of national prosperity."