Friday, October 16, 2015

Visiting our manufacturers in Portugal

I'm sitting in the airport waiting for my flight out of Oporto. I've just spent a day in Guimaraes, North Portugal with our manufacturing partners. I know that I mention this time and again but I am so pleased and proud that Old Rectory products are made in Europe. We work towards ensuring that our products have as little impact on the environment as possible within the textile industry and being in our manufacturing centre today gave me that familiar good-vibes feeling that I get whenever I visit. Guimareas is instilled in the culture of textiles, pottery, embroidery, leathercrafting, tanning and many other crafts which I noticed as I strolled around the town's historical centre this evening. Any lover of textiles will find themselves admiring the exquisite hand crafted embroidered cottons and linens which the town seems to be famous for. I recommend a visit to the town if only for the embroidered tablecloths although one cannot ignore the incredible medieval architecture - it was a something that took me by surprise as generally I've only concentrated on getting to and from the factory with not much time to spare.

Interior of manufacturing centre, Portugal

Interior of manufacturing centre, Portugal


The local economy took a devastating hit when the great surge of manufacturing moved to China. Local employees within the industry were either made redundant or, as many did, moved to Moroccan factories in order to provide for their families. Whilst chatting to my work collegue in her factory today I asked if there has there been a return of manufacturing back to Portugal and she said that there has been some - a small but steady movement back. I found myself making associations to parts of Ireland that were dependent on certain industries like the textile one in Guimareas. Those industries aren't really coming back yet - the one that springs to mind is fishing. However the fishing towns in Ireland currently have a thriving tourist industry which we seem to promote well and enjoy. Lets hope we protect their indigenous architecture and maybe in centuries to come someone will refer to them as I am refering to this lovely medieval town of Guimaraes.

Historical centre, Guimaraes.

I got confirmation from our manufacturers that the GOTS (Global Organic Textile Standard) certification will be accredited to all of our future products which I'm extremely pleased about. This will stand along our Oek-o-tex certification.

I heard this one chattering for sure.

Oh and my sons will be so pleased to hear that Guimaraes is mad about parrots. It was quite dreamy walking through the narrow cobbled streets listening to the sing-song chatter of parrots high above on potted terraces and balconies whilst a gentle warm breeze was stroking my face.


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Thursday, September 24, 2015

Junior Cert and GOTS Cert.

The children are settling back into the new term and their various group activities are gathering momentum. On the academic front we get a reprieve from end-of-year state exams in our household - Yippee. Our eldest son sat his Junior Cert in June and our second son will sit his Junior Cert in June 2017 so no 'study talks' or 'student time-management talks' this year for me - nothing like an exam-tethered child to keep you on tenterhooks in the kitchen, making sure that every corner of their nutritional needs are met - glad to have a break from it!

Studio news - Our new prints will be in shortly which I am really excited about. I am also close to having our range GOTS certified as well as it's current Oek-o-tex certification label. As all of our products are 100% organic cotton we fall into the category of a GOTS cert. This is just fantastic as our ethical and sustainable commitment is of up-most importance to us.

The upstream manufacturing process in the fashion industry is wrought with abusive practices in the farming industry and dying industry which are destroying our natural resources at the rate of knots. Sweat-shops in Bangladesh and other countries are in abundance; young workers are robbed of their health and education whilst spending cripplingly long hours huddled over sewing machines in poor light. I am proud to be working towards ensuring that our products have a lower impact on the environment, and that the people making our products are healthy and paid fairly.

Here are a few photo-reminders of our gorgeous Swallow print which will be back in stock shortly.

Swallow T-shirt





Swallow Romper
Swallow blanket