Where Did the Skills Go? – Fiona Colton Passing on her 50yrs of sewing skills and knowledge

Fiona, a sample machinist and sewing technician at the university, has been making clothes since she was 17. In this interview, she talks with Bryony about her experience of clothing manufacture in the UK as work has been outsourced overseas.

Fiona describes watching two different companies collapse after chasing cheaper production overseas. When the work left, so did the jobs – skilled machinists and pattern cutters lost their livelihoods, and a whole body of practical knowledge began to disappear.

Dr Simon Gill joins the conversation to reflect on how offshoring manufacturing also offshores skill, and why it’s dangerous to assume that “latent manufacturing skills” simply exist somewhere else without investment and training. For Palava’s sustainability journey, Fiona’s story is a reminder that making clothes responsibly isn’t just about fabric and fibre choices; it’s about where and how garments are made, whether skills are valued as “skilled work”, and what it would mean to rebuild local, humane manufacturing again.

At Palava, we are proud to make in the UK and to use British Factories, but feel this isn't enough.

The micro factory that we are building at the hatchery is our solution to all of this. Training up our own workforce to have the skills and abilities to make to the quality expected.