|Our Story|
Makers HQ CIC is a clothing sampling studio, based in Plymouth, England. We provide services including pattern cutting, digitizing and grading, sampling, and small scale production runs to existing and start up brands.
As a community interest company, the money generated by the sampling studio, goes back into our training unit, where we provide free accredited courses in industrial sewing and pattern cutting to people in and around our area. The aim is to provide them with a recognised qualification and a new skill set.
Stonehouse Union is a project set up by Makers HQ CIC and funded by The Rank Foundation, to create another source of income to support the training unit, in turn allowing us to help people gain a qualification that they can then take forward to another level of study or apply for a job!
As a British brand, we want to reignite the UK's clothing manufacturing industry. Not least that of Plymouth, where this industry employed hundreds of skilled workers several decades ago. The Jaeger clothing factory on Union Street unfortunately closed down in 1997 and moved manufacturing abroad, as many factories did at the time. The building is now a Millfields Trust business unit centre, and the home of our studio.
We believe in working to support those around us which is why our brand was set up with the help of small local businesses including Richard Fisher, a Stonehouse historian; Alan Qualtrough, a Letterpress typographer; and Common Sense Studio, who screen print our internal garment labels and recyclable mailing bags. Check out the Community page to read more.
Cutting corners on unnecessary things and reducing our carbon footprint is a big part of what motivates our work. That's why we only source fabrics milled in the UK, we screen print waste offcuts for the inside label of our jackets rather than have labels manufactured, and we post your order using wet strength recyclable paper sacks instead of plastic alternatives.