The David Nieper fashion house held the official opening of its new cutting factory in Alfreton, Derbyshire.
The family run business established in 1961, employs over 230 people locally including designers, dressmakers and garment cutters and has now invested in state-of-the-art new facilities for their fabric cutting team, to help meet the ever increasing demand for ‘Made in Britain’ fashion.
With an investment of £750,000 the company has bought, adapted and equipped this additional factory. Over 100 staff and guests attended the opening to wish the 15 strong ‘cutting’ team well in their new workplace.
This purpose designed fabric cutting facility includes fabric warehouse, state of the art fabric examination, fabric relaxation and fabric cutting alongside lace cutting and other preparations to prepare all the components for making a garment.
One of the new pieces of equipment is the fabric relaxing machine, designed to preserve the fabric’s optimum condition for sewing, especially with fabrics which are naturally ‘stretchy’ such as swimwear fabrics. This will improve quality, save time and increase efficiency.
Garment ‘fit’ is very important in fashion and clothing manufacture and for this reason the new factory will house David Nieper’s automated cutting machinery which cuts each piece of fabric with precision and to the highest quality.
Almost 3,000 garments are cut from rolls of fabric every week at David Nieper, however following the opening of the new factory the company will have capacity to double production and meet the growing demand for British made fashion.
Managing Director, Christopher Nieper commented.
“Our company has always been committed to British manufacturing, for over 50 years we have been loyal to the Alfreton community and have created jobs for over 100 people from the start of the recession. We are one of the few UK fashion houses that have never gone offshore to manufacture and ‘Made in Britain’ is a core value to our business.
This latest investment in our cutting team will help secure the future of ‘Made in Britain’ fashion. The new facilities will enable us to increase volume, increase sales and ultimately create more jobs longer term and increase prosperity for Alfreton.”
The new factory will be officially opened by a very popular, surprise guest – recently retired Cutting Room Manager David Disley, who served fifteen years leading the cutting room at David Nieper. David has been invited to return to do the honours of cutting the ribbon and declaring the new site open for business.
