After 19 years in business Phoenix Clothing, Nottingham are being forced into retirement and are closing their doors prematurely due to a large unpaid invoice.
Housed in a former lace factory in the heart of Nottingham city centre, Phoenix Clothing has produced an entire array of garments during their time in business, from dance wear, to traditional African dress, booties for babies, vintage clothes and breastfeeding wear, just to name a few.
Winners of the Saga Spirit of Enterprise Award, they always strive for perfection and are a team of highly skilled seamstresses and expert machinists having worked in textiles for their entirety of their careers.
Phoenix Clothing have won the legal case against the client, who has now ceased trading and declared themselves insolvent so renumeration unfortunately cannot be claimed.
Olivia Swift, Founder of Lotus Maternity has offered to help recuperate some of the manufacturing costs, so Phoenix can pay their wages ahead of Christmas.
Olivia said:
“I am incredibly saddened by the situation.
“Christine and Hillary have been so wonderful and have been so kind and helpful to me this past 5 years.
“They really are masters of their craft and the attention to detail and quality of everything that they produce is part of the reason why Lotus Maternity’s products have received multiple industry awards.
“It is rare to still be manufacturing garments locally and I will be in floods of tears helping to clear out the unit when they close at Christmas.”
Christine Crawford (73) and Hillary Booth (69), directors at Phoenix are devastated to be having to finish in this manner, Crawford reports:
“I said to my husband who comes in on Fridays to hoover up all of the threads and trims that I know we should be proud of what we have achieved in being in business all this time but we wanted to finish on our own terms, rather than being forced into a situation where we have no other option than to close.
“It’s just incomprehensible to have ended up in this mess but Hillary and I haven’t paid ourselves for three months and it’s created such stress and burden for us all.”
Lotus Maternity have offered to sell the stock, which is predominantly women’s and children’s base layers for sport and exercise, on their website and have organised pop up shops to be held locally at:
Roko Health Club, West Bridgford – Saturday 10th December 8 am -2 pm
Anthony Atkinson, Roko Deputy General Manager said:
“We are delighted to help support this cause and to also offer our members the chance to purchase premium, locally made exercise wear at great value for money.
“Dr Terri Holloway, Head of Ingenuity Lab was equally keen to get on board, “Olivia is twice alumna of this university and a valued member of the Lab.
“We have visited Phoenix Clothing a few times ourselves to showcase Lotus Maternity and the fantastic clothing which is being produced right on our doorstep. It’s so sad what has happened, so we are pleased to get behind the campaign and show our support.”
https://lotusmaternity.co.uk/will-you-support-made-in-nottingham-this-christmas
