Woollen mill starts consumer brand for home use

Pudsey-based Hainsworth, which has a turnover of around £14m and employs 190 people in Leeds, has announced Scarlet & Argent, which will initially sell through the company’s newly created e-commerce website – www.scarletandargent.co.uk – and will then roll out to major retailers and independent homes and interiors stockists over the coming months.

The plan is that as well as the UK, Scarlet & Argent will be pushed as an international brand with stores around the world stocking the range.

The company, one of the oldest woollen mills in Europe, operates in a diverse range of sectors, from protective fabrics for the emergency services and uniforms for the military to pool and snooker table cloth and interior fabrics for exclusive homes and palaces around the world.

Apart from the launch of Scarlet & Argent, the company is looking to significantly increase its international exports.

It has launched a global sales and marketing push to promote its innovative fabrics used to kit out firefighters. Hainsworth TITAN fabric is already used by a number of British fire brigades as well as fire services in the United States, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Sweden and Germany. The company has now set its sights on breaking further into the Middle East, US and Australia.

At the same time, Hainsworth is aiming to increase the amount of business it does in China by capitalising on the growth in snooker and pool in that country.

Hainsworth is headed up by managing director Tom Hainsworth and fellow directors Adam and Rachel Hainsworth – the seventh generation of the family-run business – as well as sales director Diane Simpson.

Tom Hainsworth said: “We have put in place an exciting, ambitious and firmly international expansion plan for the business.

“We will be continuing to look to grow in our traditional markets, but the launch of Scarlet & Argent provides us with the platform to target consumers directly for the first time.” He said the New South Wales fire service in Australia has recently adopted Hainsworth cloth to protect its firefighters in the “biggest global firefighting tender this year”.