The new tools available to a new set of people are inspiring them; they have the creativity skills. Going to Derbyshire to think about laptops and looms is good creative strategy and chimes with the spirit of the times perfectly. But, as Russel Davies points out, the conditions enabling  textiles businesses springing up in Derbyshire no longer exist.

The reasons for a textile industry in Derbyshire  were water power, moist air and  favourable trade conditions thanks to an empire. Importing raw silk and cotton, bulk materials does not make economic sense any more. And wool, a Debyshire bulk produced product is rarely used to make fine clothing. John Smedley, one of the best known quality garment manufacturers in Derbyshire imports their merino wool; it is not from Derbyshire black faced sheep as the locally sourced, sustainable narrative might demand. They use Japanese machines [1].

Prince Charles appears to be leading the campaign for wool. He makes the observation that the cost of shearing a sheep is more than the value of the wool obtained [2]. This campaign for wool seem like his other harking campaigns; in architecture, food production and health.

It would be wonderful to afford to make things – clothes, bread, other items which are mass produced – and to improve them, making low cost bespoke items. And to do so in a community of makers. But skills are expensive to obtain and the simple economics of living somewhere — paying council tax, water rates, and buying food — excludes them as valid methods of making a living  unless you have capital or assets already available. Charles has the capital, so do the owners of the Chatsworth cricket ground. And yes! … it is nice to play a spot of cricket on a Sunday in Derbyshire (Cheshire too!!).  Moving to a non-cricket playing part of the Eurozone might be a way to go: Italy, Greece, Portugal???

The hidden ‘Edgelands’ economy “under railway arches and on industrial estates”, I suggest, would frighten the life out of the art/geek hipster graduate armed with a laptop, a commitment to Open Source and a Northern Quarter derived social media strategy. A conversation in a pub close to the confluence of the Mersey and the Goyt is not going to give birth to a Apple or a Hewlet Packard or another Rolls Royce.

I hope it does though. I like the story of there being something in the air, the history … which like DNA provides the means for an evolution – its Tony Wilson stuff, or at least where he was heading – psychogegraphy goes country. Romance! Love it.

Thanks for a thought provoking post.

[1] http://www.johnsmedley.com/uk/discover/the-john-smedley-story/
[2] http://www.campaignforwool.org/news/