Pictures and text by Joanna in our Design Department
The Worshipful Company of Glovers of London visited Dents last Wednesday for their annual social engagement. This Livery Company was formed as long ago as 1349 by glove makers in London who wished to protect the high standard of their craft, and it now embraces the best qualities of a fine City institution with an active and enthusiastic membership of 260 individuals. The aims of the Livery are to promote the British glove trade, the wearing of gloves, and to raise money for charitable purposes.
The Master Glover, Keith Ebsworth, with Wardens and Dents Director, Deborah Moore.
Dents Chairman, Robert Yentob, welcomed the 50 Glovers.
The Glovers were given a tour of the new Dents facility This included the factory and the Dents Museum, where Museum Curator, Sarah Kenyon, showed the Glovers our extensive collection of historic gloves. The Glovers were also given a presentation on how Dents put together their new seasons’ collections, and a special PR presentation of recent TV coverage that Dents has featured in, including Flog it, Gok Wan’s Fashion Fix and Princess Anne’s Royal visit.
The Master, Keith Ebsworth, awarded Daphne Highfield a certificate for her 25 years of service in the glove industry.
Overall, it was a lovely day, apart from the awful rainy weather of course!
The military family and the civil community of Warminster turned out last Friday to say farewell to the men and women of ”3 Yorks”, the 3rd Battatlion, The Yorkshire Regiment, which is deploying to Afghanistan.
Dents employees getting ready for the parade
The pictures above were taken by Joanna, Dents’ photographer. You can see more pictures of this emotional occasion, which attracted thousands of well wishers, at Warmnister Web, and some wonderful footage from the BBC here.
HRH The Princess Royal’s recent visit to Dents glove factory (“the first new glove factory in Great Britain for 150 years”) was featured on both BBC and ITV – just click on the links to view.
And, there are some great pictures of the visit on Warminster Web.
The media was out in force for HRH the Princess Royal’s visit to Dents.
They were attracted not only by the royal visit, but also by Dents’ continued success during very difficult times for British manufacturing.
With BBC TV, ITV, BBC Radio and local radio in attendance, along with several photographers and reporters from various print and online media, journalists were everywhere. Ms Deborah Moore and Dents Marketing Consultant Mr John Roberts headed a long list of Dents personnel who were interviewed for television and radio. Tony Foreman, who has been with Dents for 47 years, was interviewed about sales and the new distribution facilities, John Cundick, who
started with Dents in 1949, spoke about the remarkable changes that have taken place over the years; Sally Norris and Lily Munday, who have both been with Dents for well over 40 years, demonstrated their hand sewing techniques to fascinated camera crews; and even our honoured overseas agents and visitors were pulled in, with Mr Nagabuchi from Japan managing an excellent interview despite limited English.
The effort and co-operation by everyone at Dents on the day ensured the visit by HRH the Princess Royal went without a hitch, and the celebrations at a dance for the staff that evening were well deserved. The visit had been a resounding success!
Last Friday was a wonderful day for Dents! HRH The Princess Royal honoured the company by visiting our brand new £4 million factory complex in Warminster, Wiltshire, and officially opening the new head offices with the unveiling of a plaque.
After days of rain and biting winds, the skies cleared and at 9.50am sharp the Royal helicopter soared over the building. Minutes later HRH The Princess Royal arrived at Dents and the visit had begun!
Our Creative Director Deborah Moore hosted the visit, and after early introductions, she accompanied the Princess Royal to various departments within the company, including the factory, the design department and our fascinating museum.
The Princess Royal stopped to talk to many members of staff, and was particularly interested in meeting the leather selectors and hand sewers in the factory, and learning about Dents 2012 Collections from the design team. She chatted to many of Dents’ longest serving employees, and met a number of guests, including Dents overseas agents Mr Nagabuchi from Japan, Mr Kenny Kang from Korea and Ms Carole De Schepper from Belgium.
The museum was of particular interest to The Princess Royal, especially the photograph of the visit of His Royal Highness, The Prince of Wales, to Dents in 1923, the Coronation Glove made for Queen Elizabeth II, and also the gloves worn by Queen Elizabeth I and Lord Nelson.
Her Royal Highness was presented with a donation to the Princess Anne’s Charities Trust, and a pair of Dents leather gloves.
All in all it was a wonderfully happy day, and it was all over far too quickly.
By Sally Smith
The end of an era. That was how I felt, and that was how some of the journalists described it, as the first excavators started work earlier today demolishing our iconic 1930s style head office and factory in Warminster.
Certainly, it was an emotional day for many Dents staff, especially the longer serving employees, who have been with the company for well over 40 years.
(left to right at front) Tony Foreman, Deborah Moore and John Cundick with demo team
The jaws of the excavator loom as John sheds a tear. Also in the picture, Deborah, Tony, and Jeremy Evans
John Cundick especially was attracting a lot of attention because he has worked at Dents continuously, apart from a short break for military service, since 1949.
He joined a few of us on site this morning to wave goodbye to the building he has known since he was a young teenager.
“I started immediately on leaving school at Dents, and my goodness, it was a different place then,” John told me. “We still made beautiful gloves, but there were no computers, few typewriters. Most work was done by hand – both the sewing and also the record keeping,” he said.
“Considering we were even in those days a global company exporting around the world, you can imagine the paperwork involved.”
John also has memories of a big well near the entrance, of real fires (for heating!) throughout the building, and of regular Saturday morning working with just two weeks holiday a year. Makes you wonder about the term “good old days”!
But times move on, and now the old premises are being demolished and developed by Henry Boot of Bristol to include a 23,000 sq ft Waitrose foodstore.
We at Dents are already happily ensconced in a superb new purpose built 45,000 sq ft head office, factory and warehouse just the other side of town, with a brilliant new factory shop on site.
Deborah Moore, one of our directors, said that while it was sad to see the old building disappear, it was nevertheless a celebration marking a new way forward into an exciting future.
“This year our sales have gone up steadily; our collections of handbags, hats and scarves as well as gloves for men and women are being sold in major department stores and fashion outlets across the world,” she said. “Two hundred years ago, when Dents was a fledgling glove maker, few could have dreamed of the premises that are now being demolished; and what they would have thought of our new headoffice and factory, with its electronic equipment and high tech facilities, I can’t imagine!”
Once the first excavator set to work, it was time to leave. The noise and the dust will continue for a while, but it seems it will all be gone in just two weeks. After that, it will be just photographs and our memories – and of course time to start forward on another exciting step in the Dents story.
John has been with Dents since 1949, no wonder the media flocked to him to hear all those memories of yesteryear. Here he is being interviewed by the BBC.
Some mixed feelings, maybe, as we see the bulldozers arrive at our old building in Fairfield Road – as the BBC has reported, demolition day is finally here. Sally’s personal report, marking this important day in Dents’ history, with pictures and interviews, will follow…
In the meantime – it’s back to business, with Dents exhibiting at Moda at the NEC in Birmingham from August 14 to 16. You can see our spring / summer 2012 men’s collection on stand MA30, and women’s collection on M11
Finally, a note for those of you who can’t wait to fill your shopping trolleys – I hear Waitrose won’t be up and running until the New Year after all…
Glastonbury fever, only 32 days to go… Oh, what to wear?
Did everyone know that we are only just down the road from Glastonbury? In fact many of you will come within half a mile of our factory shop – good news, as I for one cannot wait to start pulling together my festival look, and this season it’s all about the 70’s.
With bold patterns mixed with ditzy florals, retro shades, crochet tops and denim shorts, it all seems a bit of a mis-match, which is how I’m justifying throwing all my favourite pieces from the Dents collection together.
After much deliberation I have settled of this fab hat to cover my unruly hair…
teaming it with this cute little duffel handbag, and with only four days to pay-day : ) …
I also have my eye on this little clutch. Naughty, I know, but with the legendary Paul Simon and U2 there, I feel like I should make the effort.
So, hey, the sun is out (well today anyway), and the heat is on, so I’m daring to bare in style.
Kelly -x-
