Princess of Wales gets the measure of Guardsman's uniform during textile mill visit
The Princess of Wales made a special visit to a textile mill in Leeds that had a close association with her family.
Kate, who became Commodore-in-Chief of the Fleet Air Arm last month, visited Yorkshire manufacturer AW Hainsworth and was given a guided tour of the business, from yarn to the same fabric that was used for her husband's wedding military uniform.
The company, based in the small town of Pudsey, makes textiles for a range of clients, from fashion houses like Gucci and woven felt for Steinway pianos to the red tunics worn by the Guardsmen, and bought a woollen manufacturer from the princess's family in the 1950s.
For his 2011 wedding, Prince William wore his Irish Guards military uniform, reflecting his role at the time as Colonel of the Irish Guards.
The Yorkshire manufacturer also made the scarlet tunics of the Guardsmen on duty during the coronations of both Queen Elizabeth II in 1953 and the King in May.
Amanda McLaren, AW Hainsworth's managing director, said after the visit: "Her love for textiles was clearly there.
"She was commenting that she loved the smell of wool, for example.
"She was fascinated by some of the traditional processes and also things like the dye house where she could see the fabric that is worn by the Buckingham Palace guards…being dyed red, and it really brought home to her the intricacies of the process and the skills of our people."
As the visit came to an end the Princess was shown a dummy wearing the full guardsman outfit of bearskin, scarlet tunic and trousers, and ran her hands over the merino wool fabric of the jacket.
Rachel Hainsworth, a seventh generation of the family-run business who sits on AW Hainsworth's family council, chatted to Kate about Lupton & Co, the woollen business they bought from Kate's paternal family.
She said about the Princess: "She knows about the history, her parents have been talking to her about it," and she was interested to hear how the Lupton company specialised in "collar Melton" a piece of woollen cloth used to give body and definition to a jacket collar.
Ms Hainsworth added: "It was a time when it was an amalgamation of all the textile industries when people were struggling and we were starting to get the imports from overseas."
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