The Factory
Cardigan used to have Britain’s biggest jeans factory. It made 35,000 pairs of jeans a week for decades. Then one day it had to close. The factory left town. But the skills remained. Our idea was to give the people who worked there their jobs back.
So that skill and knowledge could get back to doing the thing it knows best: making jeans.
So there are six of us in the factory. Our job is make the best jeans we can, and not the most jeans we can.
Here’s to quality.
History Tag
We like to know the history of things. Where they have been? What they did? HistoryTag helps you tell the stories of the things you own.
It can show the history of a thing from its creation, through its life with its first owner, and onwards as it gets passed on and handed down.
It’s very simple - if you’ve bought something with a HistoryTag on it then you just type its Secret Code here and see the history of that item. Then, if you want, you can add to that history via Twitter and Flickr.
The Grand Master of Denim
Malcolm Gladwell wrote it takes 10,000 hours to become a Grand Master in chess. A Grand Master is someone who is capable of playing at the highest international level. In our town, there are people who have spent 20,000 hours, 30,000 hours, and in some cases, 40,000 hours making jeans. Their hands and eyes have been trained in the essence of making great jeans. They are the Grand Masters of denim.
You see, we had Britain’s biggest jeans factory on our doorstep. It employed 400 people out of a town of 4,000 people. And it made 35,000 pairs of jeans each week for 3-4 decades. That’s a lot of jeans. And we all know what practice makes.
In Cardigan, it’s hard to find someone who doesn’t know how to make jeans. If you go to the coffee shop, they used to make jeans. If you go the pub, they used to make jeans. If you learn how to drive, the driving instructor used to make jeans.
Yes, this town knows how to make great jeans.