Profession / role:

Textiles Producer

Company / organisation:

Ardalanish Isle of Mull Weavers

Website (if you have one):

http://www.ardalanish.com

My primary role in relation to fashion is:

Designer, Retailer, Supplier, Manufacturer

I am looking to discover or buy

Designers, tailors, clothing manufacturers, retail buyers, students

About me / About business or organisation:

We make beautiful Organic & Ethical Tweed fabrics, designer clothing, soft funishings, accessories and gift items from the undyed wool of native breed sheep.

Based on the Hebridean island of Mull we can supply cloth around the world for wholesale & retail. We also offer bespoke weaving, textile design services and we are happy to undertake commissions.

Career history / Company history:

The original Isle of Mull weavers was started by Bob & Kathy Ryan in the 1980s. The looms came to Ardalanish in 2003 when Bob retired. This is when we began to work exlcusively with undyed native breed wools like Hebridean, Shetland & Manx Loaghtan. In 2006 we achieved Soil Association Organic textile certification and produced the world's first certified Organic Tweeds.

In 2007 launched our own designer clothing collection by Anja Hynynen and won the Best Textile Product category at the Organic Industry Awards.

In 2008 we started using natural dyes like woad & madder to add touches of colour to our natural fabrics and we also developed a harder wearing upholstery grade tweed.

In 2009 we saw record numbers of visitors to the farm, we continued to develop our designer and casual collections and we delivered our largest order to date, almost 1000m of Organic Tweed.

We've been busy in the last few years and as we are always striving to refine and improve what we do we have managed to add high end and high profile customers to our client list including Savile Row tailors (men's and women's), designers like Eloise Grey and Howie Nicholsby as well as high street brands like Howie's and Jigsaw.