As the year comes to a close, we couldn’t resist looking back at the most incredible year we have had! Packed with centenary celebrations, our best Proposte Fair to date and many visits across the world to our fabulous customers, we are looking back with pride, and looking forward to what 2025 has in store!
2024 began with a feature on our Creative and Commercial Director Emma Douglas in The Textile Eye, Report 19: “UK Chic”. It was a detailed and fascinating interview about both the services we offer and Emma’s passion for creativity and colour.
She told The Textile Eye, “My personal greatest inspiration is my team, which is full of highly skilled and talented, creative individuals, who work together to produce beautifully printed textiles and wallcoverings."
Also in the new year, our Swedish friends at Svenskt Tenn, celebrated their hundredth birthday, commemorating it with a centenary edition fabric which we were incredibly proud to print here, on our Flatbed machine. Take a look at their centenary campaign, filmed here on site!
April signified the official beginning of our centenary campaign, as our first recorded textile was printed here in Lancaster in April 1924. We launched our centenary video to showcase all the services we offer here, with a century of skill and expertise.
You can view the video here!
Over the course of our centenary year, we have been donating to a different charity every month. Twelve local charities or organisations were selected by our own employees; it has been so rewarding seeing the outcomes of our donations throughout the year. Our donation has supported the Lancaster 5th Girl Guides on their trip to Italy this autumn as well as enabling the Lancaster City FC Junior Girls to get new winter training coats.
To kick off our celebrations we were so proud to open our exhibition ‘Standfast & Barracks, A Century of Design’ with Lancaster City Museum.
Documenting our history, as well as more recent achievements such as winning the Queen’s Award for International Trade in 2020, the exhibition was a great opportunity to show the local community what goes on ‘behind the walls’.
Take a look here, for a tour of the exhibition.
In May, we packed our cases and headed to Lake Como, Italy, for Proposte! Our favourite show we have done, which wouldn’t have been possible without the support of our wonderful customers, coming from near and far.
We also had a fabulous evening celebrating our centenary at Villa Geno. It was the most special way to celebrate the momentous occasion with our treasured friends from across the globe. Thanks to all who managed to come and raise a glass to the next century of excellence and the wonderful moments yet to come!
May also saw us feature in an article by Amy Wilson of The Times, ‘Spirit of reinvention keeps textile factory alive for a century’. Wilson kindly wrote “Standfast’s 100-year heritage is undoubtedly a source of pride, but the factory has survived the decline of the British textile industry not by clinging on to tradition but by innovating and accepting the need to change.”
You can read the full article here.
June saw another article published around our milestone in local luxury magazine Lancashire Life. ‘A Rich Thread: A Lancaster firm with a global reputation is celebrating a centenary of textile tradition’. With huge thanks to Paul Mackenzie and photographer Kirsty Thompson.
We also held a Schools Design Competition for local schools and colleges, to create a design based on Standfast & Barracks, and the nature surrounding our site. The winning designs were printed onto fabric using our Ecofast digital machine, it was fantastic to see the joy and amazement on their faces, whilst watching their beautiful designs come to life as a printed textile.
Take a look here, to see how it went when we welcomed them on site!
Finally, we ended June with our Centenary Celebration Day, welcoming a remarkable group of guests including the Lord Lieutenant of Lancashire, the Deputy Mayor of Lancaster, and members of the press.
It was a wonderful day, unveiling our newly restored clock tower and commemorative plaque, as well as being presented with the belated 2020 Queen’s Award for Enterprise: International Trade.
July welcomed fantastic Artist Margo Selby! As part of the Festival of Making, we collaborated with Margo, welcoming her on site, to create ‘Breathing Colour’. The textile installation was suspended from the heights of Blackburn Cathedral and was formed of 100 metres of printed and manipulated fabric, each colour being chosen by all 160 employees with a memory or story in mind. There was a wonderful sound piece created by Peter Coyte accompanying the installation, with recordings from inside our factory and a live performance by Leyland Band.
Also in July, the whole S&B team had a wonderful time celebrating our centenary together, along with their families. It was a fantastic opportunity to celebrate the Standfast community and come together in recognition of everyone’s efforts, not just in our centenary year, but every year.
In September we had our biggest launch of Digital Pattern Books ever! With eight new pattern books featuring a wide variety of styles, including Florals, Indienne, globally inspired designs and reimagined designs from the 1920s.
Take a look here!
For the first time ever, we held two Heritage Open Days, welcoming well over 400 visitors for an exclusive look inside our factory, design studios and archive. It was especially wonderful to welcome retired Flatbed Supervisor, Max Turner, who worked for Barracks, then Standfast and Barracks following our merge in 1996, totalling over 30 years of service!
We also welcomed the latest addition to our ever-growing digital department, our new Durst Digital Pigment Machine.
Read all about it below!
Moving into November, we welcomed Tim Preston, our new Group Operations Director. He has been traveling across the country, working closely with us and our sister company Anstey Wallpaper Company. We look forward to 2025 with Tim at the helm.
To share our celebrations with the local community, we were delighted to be part of the Light Up Lancaster festival. We collaborated with NOVAK, to create ‘Imprint’ bringing our designs and clocktower to life! It featured nearly 50 staff members, the clock tower and designs originating from our extensive archive. The artwork was a celebration of the fantastic people who work here, our archive and historic factory.
Simon Palmer, Operations Manager, said “We wanted to celebrate our employees and the business and Light Up Lancaster seemed like the perfect opportunity to create a ‘wow’ moment to top off a fantastic year”
Finally, at the end of November, we were honoured to welcome Cat Smith, MP for Lancaster and Wyre, on site, to tour our factory and Archive.
Reflecting on her visit, Cat shared:
“It was inspiring to see how Standfast & Barracks has maintained its status as a creative powerhouse in fabric printing since 1924. Their meticulous production processes, attention to detail, and commitment to quality ensure their products stand out globally, attracting highly reputable buyers. We are so fortunate to have this unique manufacturing business on our doorstep here in Lancaster, providing highly skilled and creative job opportunities.” Read her full blog post here.
December has been packed full of festivities and Christmas spirit, make sure you check out our Instagram to see what we have been up to! We can’t wait to see what 2025 brings and wish all our wonderful customers a wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year, filled with joy and festivity.
