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True. I remember Christian Dior shirts coming in from Hong Kong in the 80's. That's why I find it incredible that any textile companies have survived this long. The prices in China, Taiwan etc are so low, how are British companies making money unless they are high margin manufacturers. So many went to the wall in the 80's I assumed they'd all gone now. And chains like BHS were the worst to make money our of.

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There were five textile factories within ten minuets walk of my house now all closed :(

The hosiery & knitwear union had a branch office here(in Loughborough). too

The factories still remain but are used for other purposes

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When think how big Courtauld's used to be.

The Courtauld's Building (its official name) on Hayden Road was the head office. They took over Bairns Wear on Perry Road and High Fields Knitting in Hucknall amongst others.

Was Pretty Polly one of theirs too.

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Marks and Spencer use to have all there knitwear from above factories if any garment had a stich 1mm away they used to send the whole batch back.

Now I ask you where do the garments come from now days?

Every thing had to be perfect for them, till they stopped buying British goods, then guess what I tried 3 skirts on all same size and each one differed on the waist. Ask the sale lady why!!!! so much different as all skirts same size. Did not get an answer.

No more to say

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I have several pairs of M+S trousers all the same size & all the same fit. Still top quality & feel great to wear.

Not sure where they are made though.

A few years ago a mate of mine used to drive an artic full of pork pies to M+S food distribution depot up north, Barnsley I think

Before they unloaded his wagon sample temperate readings where taken from random pies in his refrigereated trailer.

Any readings out of range meant the whole consignment were rejected ! M+S have very high standards.

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Marks and Spencer use to have all there knitwear from above factories if any garment had a stich 1mm away they used to send the whole batch back.

Now I ask you where do the garments come from now days?

Every thing had to be perfect for them, till they stopped buying British goods, then guess what I tried 3 skirts on all same size and each one differed on the waist. Ask the sale lady why!!!! so much different as all skirts same size. Did not get an answer.

No more to say

Hmm. Look at that from the other side; it's all very well having high standards (and I'm not saying that we shouldn't) but it comes at a price, and it's a price that British consumers became both unwilling and to an extent unable to pay.

If you as a company adhere to those standards, that British supplier of yours ends up having to sell a lot of its products off as rejects, at a lower price, if it fails to maintain the required quality control standards. Profits tumble, economies of scale are made; and those latter rarely if ever involve improvements. Jobs are lost, and that means people have less money to buy those high-quality products. Retail companies therefore source their products from countries where labour and raw materials are cheaper, so as to be able to sell their goods at a competitive rate in order to survive. Cycle continues till we reach the bottom.

The cop-out from the left is normally to blame Thatcher, who happened to be PM at the time. Realistically it's far bigger than that, and if we're honest has been going on for a lot longer. When I was a kid in the 1960's, "Made in Japan" was a by-word for cheap tat. Nowadays it's more or less desirable if you're going to get a quality product, and it certainly isn't cheap.

It's also worth noting that whilst we did indeed make a lot of very good things in the UK we also produced our fair share of crap, particularly in the immediate years before the Thatcher government. Again,Japanese cars were derided as being cheap and cheerful whereas in reality they were at least as well made as British ones, no worse in terms of rusting and always far better equipped.Today they're pretty much the benchmark which other manufacturers strive towards.

We can moan about all these "historic" factories closing as much as we like, but as a nation we have to consider how much of the decline is in fact self-inflicted.

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skriv

I hear what your saying but do we really have a choice?

are we not told what to do? We are only the workers.

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