To celebrate Soft Furnishings and Fabrics being placed under the editorial spotlight this month, Hotel Designs asks the team at Edmund Bell to explain its past, present and predict its future…
Ever since Edmund Bell was founded in 1855, as a merchant converter in textiles, it has always been proud of its heritage – becoming a major supplier of blackout fabrics during World War II, which is how it inadvertently entered the soft furnishings market.
Fast forward 165 years and the company now supplies for more than 8,000 customers across the globe in more than 50 different countries, directly from its headquarters in Rochdale, UK. One of its recent projects was Hard Rock Hotel London, which Hotel Designs exclusively reviewed shortly after opening.
The team at Edmund Bell take pride in the fact that when a company chooses to work with them, they are:
- Investing in skilled craftsmanship.
- Investing in something of quality that will last.
- Securing the future of manufacturing within Europe.
- Buying a product that has passed our rigorous quality checks.
- Buying a product that we are trying to ensure has significantly lower carbon footprint than others on the market
Edmund Bell’s products are rigorously tested to ensure they meet all the relevant technical requirements necessary for each sector they could be going into; from Retail, Hospitality, Workplace and Education, to Healthcare and Cruise.
For example:
- The ranges meet multiple flame retardant standards from the UK and internationally.
- The brand aims for longevity in our fabrics with relevant testing for colour fastness to light, washability and durability to wear.
- Many ranges benefit from special properties such as Anti-Microbial, Stain Resistance or Crease Resistance finishes, plus many more.
- The brand tries to use more natural raw materials with less environmental impacts.
All the technical specification details for each range can be viewed online, where it is available to download as well as all available test certificates to ensure you have all the relevant information for your project.
To make sure that designers, architects and specifiers have as much choice as possible when working on a new design concept, the brand offers the option to order free samples of all our fabric ranges directly from our website. Browse Edmund Bell’s wide selection of fabrics such as blackouts, dimouts, sheers, upholstery and more – and add them to your sample basket straight from the product page.
As the brand looks forward to the future, and with many consumers becoming more socially conscious and changing their shopping behaviour; sustainability in its products, Edmund Bell’s manufacturing and within the business generally, remains increasingly important to its ongoing objectives and plans.
As a business, the company is striving to be more sustainable and work with more renewable fibres that have less environmental impact whilst still offering the highest quality products available.
Many of its products are Oeko-Tex Standard 100 approved; meaning they are completely free of toxic or allergic substances. And it is working towards complying with the Ethical Trade Initiative (ETI) base code within its supply chain; an internationally recognised code of good labour practice.
Edmund Bell is one of the brands that has taken advantage of our Industry Support Package. To keep up to date with supplier news, click here.
Main image credit: Roberto Lara Photography
