In 1927 the artist LS Lowry stood on the doorstep of Cottenham House in Salford, just across the river Irwell from Manchester City Centre. He was there to sketch St Simon’s Church, whose spire rose up among the towering chimneys of the factories that had made this area the capital of the global cotton industry in the 19th century. A year later, he returned to the exact same spot to turn his sketch into a painting, but the church was gone.
Even so, Manchester’s favourite son finished the painting from that sketch. The resulting work, A Street Scene (Simons Church), is classic Lowry with his famed ‘matchstick men’ in flat caps and heavy overcoats shuffling across the canvas around the house of worship, blackened by smoke belching from the towering factory chimneys around it. The wardrobe choices of these figures bring limited pops of red, blue and yellow to the otherwise monochrome scene of hustle and bustle.
Almost a century later, I am in exactly the same spot as Lowry. Gone is St Simon’s Church, of course, but also gone is most of the rest of the scene – and the people. It is so quiet I can hear the river flowing more than 75 yards away. Instead of the chimneys and spires, trees have reclaimed most of the abandoned lots where the factories Lowry painted once were. Except, that is, Cottenham House, where Lowry stood to capture his scene all those years ago (not in his painting, as it was behind him, but critical to the composition none the less).
Today this crenellated four-storey brick building with its imposing red door is the final working garment factory in Manchester – run by James Eden, whose great-grandfather, Jack White, was probably on shift when Lowry was here.
Private Jack White won the Victoria Cross in 1917, aged 20, when an attempted crossing of the Diyala river in Mesopotamia went disastrously wrong. Under heavy fire, he managed to rescue injured men and equipment by using a telephone wire to tow his pontoon to safety. After the First World War, he moved to Manchester to work in his local raincoat factory, founded in 1853.
Over the coming years he trained as a pattern cutter, before becoming supervisor, general manager, and, ultimately, the owner of the factory. Eden re-bought the factory in 2010 with the aim of ensuring that the site not only survived, but thrived as a new menswear brand crafting handmade clothing with historic, local expertise. He named the brand, and renamed the factory, Private White VC in honour of his great-grandfather.
“I grew up immersed in and inspired by the billowing smoke and industrial settings of Lowry’s works,” says Eden, as we step over the threshold where the artist stood and into what is now the factory showroom. The panels of a comic strip from a 1987 issue of Victor, documenting his great-grandfather’s heroism, are blown up as larger-than-life wallpaper behind the fitting room. “So when the opportunity came to work with the LS Lowry estate on this collaboration, it was not only a real privilege, but it felt very authentic.”
In tribute to Lowry’s legacy, this collection features pieces inspired by the garments sported by those matchstick men: wool topcoats, waterproofed cotton raincoats, relaxed workwear tailoring and northern chill-beating jumpers. However, there are also more modern items in the mix that update the offering for a 21st-century city dweller, such as cashmere rugby tops, cord bomber jackets and hardy jersey overshirts. And all in only the five colours Lowry used to paint with: flake white, ivory black, vermilion, Prussian blue and yellow ochre.
However, the collection is more than just an aesthetic nod to Lowry: the fact that every item is created in one of the few surviving factories that inspired the artist is especially poignant.
Private White VC today employs about 80 craftspeople, working together to produce high quality and durable pieces by hand. We start on the top floor, in the cutting room, whose timbered ceiling gives off a smooth, woody scent – like a sauna without the oppressive heat. Also in the air, courtesy of the radio, Invisible Touch by Genesis wafts around the room – appropriate for a brand that prides itself on its staff’s skilled workmanship. Brian Lang, the cutting-room manager, has worked in the factory for 16 years. When I meet him, he is using a band knife to cut around a pattern on a stack of fabric, the buzz of the electric motor giving way to the buttery sound of the blade as it zips through the material. On his free hand he wears a protective chain-mail glove.
“Depending on the style and components that each piece needs, I can get through about 800 garments a week,” Lang says. These pieces then move towards the back of the room to be prepped for construction by a team including machinist Sandra Fallows, who has worked here for 12 years. She can turn her hand to any number of tasks. Today she is marking up the collars of the Salford Succession coat in the Lowry Collection ready for the sewing team on the floor below. “I find it so rewarding when you see the finished garment on the hanger,” she says. “And I’ve had no one come up to me to tell me I’ve marked it wrong!” Fallows laughs. “I like that every day is different.”
After cutting and marking-up, every garment then moves on for assembly in a room humming with sewing machines, the air heavy with bursts of steam from fabric pressers. They skip the first floor. Here is a vast archive of the brand’s clothing, and a photography studio where new garments are shot for the brand’s online shop. Finally, it’s down to the ground floor for finishing, where garments are quality checked before heading into the showroom. The two rooms are linked by a window, allowing customers to see the final steps of the creative process while they queue at the cash register.
On the ledge leans a painting by Manchester artist Mel Champion, which was commissioned by Eden to celebrate the launch of the LS Lowry Collection. Painted in the style of Lowry, it replicates the vista and the buildings depicted in A Street Scene (Simons Church), but extends the tableau sideways to finally incorporate Cottenham House, now the Private White VC factory, in all its glory.
Out front, on the cobbles, modern matchstick men mill about in pieces from the collaboration, seamlessly socialising with those original figures from 1928. Proof that while chimneys and churches may disappear, the skilled local craftspeople who made this district famous, and the provenance of the handcrafted garments they created, are just as relevant today, thanks to the factory that continues to build on their legacy 96 years later.
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