Designing a modern moquette
As part of Calderdale’s Art and About trail, we’re delivering an exciting community arts project to celebrate Calderdale’s rich textiles history.
About the project
The moquette project will bring together communities from across Calderdale to design a new moquette fabric that will be displayed at Halifax bus station. This will be a key point of interest on the Art and About trail – a route featuring existing landmarks and new art installations that celebrate the unique heritage and culture of Halifax.
The moquette project will commemorate the history of textiles in Calderdale - but will also look to capture what makes the borough special now. The moquette fabric will bring together themes and ideas from people across Calderdale into one design that tells the unique story of the place we call home.
The project will be led by Everybody Arts Director, Harriet Fletcher, with input from artists and communities across Calderdale. In this video, you can hear Harriet share more about the project and how you can get involved.
What is moquette?
If you know bus seats, you know moquette! Moquette is woven fabric used in upholstery on public transport. It is an important part of Calderdale’s history as it has been produced in Halifax since the early 1800s by Holdsworth Fabrics (now part of Camira) and used all around the world.
If you’ve taken a bus journey in West Yorkshire or gotten on a tube on the London Underground, the chances are that you’ve sat on a piece of fabric that was designed and produced right here in Calderdale.
You can find out more about the history of moquette in Calderdale below.
“When I see moquette, it triggers memories of bus journeys to school swimming lessons, wet hair and Scampi ‘N’ Lemon Nik Naks.”
Everybody Arts studio holder
We want to hear from you!
We want to deliver this project in collaboration with Calderdale communities and will be putting on a series of workshops for people to share their ideas and learn more about the design process.
Anyone with a connection to or interest in Calderdale is invited to come along and get involved:
“Some of the moquette designs take me straight back in time. They are such a nostalgic and recognisable part of the era that they were made.”
Everybody Arts student
Share your stories
Textiles are such an important piece of our history in Calderdale and we’re sure so many people out there will have a story to tell. Perhaps you or someone you know used to work at one of Halifax’s textile mills? Or maybe you have a memory related to a bus or train travel in Calderdale?
You can share your stories with us below. As many of these stories as possible will be brought together into a documentary film to share the human moments behind the fabric and create a legacy for this project beyond the moquette itself.
You can share your story anonymously or leave your name and email address if you’d be happy for us to follow up with you.
Tell us
A quick history of textiles in Calderdale
Textiles are woven into our DNA here in Calderdale and we can trace the production of textiles back in our history as far as medieval times. Our unique geography helped Calderdale to become a major player in the industry - our proximity to fast flowing streams enabled the dyeing and finishing of large quantities of woollen cloth.
By 1500s, Calderdale was one of the largest textile manufacturing districts in the country and this continued to grow at a dramatic pace for centuries. The industrial revolution transformed the textiles industry - but didn’t slow its pace of growth here in Calderdale. Steam powered textile factories spread rapidly and by 1850 there were over 20 large mill complexes in Halifax producing huge amounts of textiles that were shipped all over the world.
Today, textiles are still an important part of our economy in Yorkshire, albeit on a smaller scale to what it once was. Companies, like Camira in Mirfeld, continue to produce fabric (including moquette) that is exported world-wide.
You can find out more about the history of textiles in Calderdale by taking a look at this timeline.
A quick history of moquette in Calderdale
If you live in Halifax, you’ve probably heard the name John Holdsworth. A well-known name in Calderdale’s textile history, John was brought up in the family textile trading business before setting up his own company in 1822, John Holdsworth and Co.
John soon began purchasing and developing land to carry out his textile operations and built the Shaw Lodge Mills complex (which is now the current home of Everybody Arts – more on this below). Over time, John Holdsworth and Co. began to specialise in the production of moquette. By the 1970s, the company had established themselves as the predominant weaver of transport seating fabrics to virtually all the leading bus and coach builders of Europe. They also went on to develop new markets in the USA, East Asia, South America and beyond.
In 2007, John Holdworth and Co. was acquired by Camira Fabrics and production at Shaw Lodge Mills stopped. Camira continue to design and produce moquette and are proud of the rich heritage they inherited. In 2022, they celebrated 200 years of transport textiles. You can find out more about this by watching this video.
Shortly after textile production stopped at Shaw Lodge Mills, the building was given a new lease of life. The grade II listed former textile mill now houses a number of organisations and businesses, including the Everybody Arts art school, gallery and artist studios. We love working in a building with so much history.