Born from 300 years of Irish linen history and experience at William Clark and Sons, Earthed is our latest spark of innovation established in 2016.

Fusing traditional with modern to forge a different path, our designs are created using the latest digital print technology and are inspired by our planet. We strive to be considerate to our environment and we exist to bring evocative colours and patterns to your home.

Background

William Clark & Sons is the oldest surviving linen factory in Ireland. Our business grew from the enterprising ideas of Jackson Clark, who saw the potential our natural landscape had to produce and finish linen. From the fertile soils used to grow flax, the humble river Clady supplying water for processing and later hydro power to drive our beetling engines and the expansive greens along the river ideal for laying out linen to bleach in the gentle Irish sun. Jackson established the first operation on this site in 1736 and to this day we still finish linen and cotton on-site servicing the fashion and interior markets. Our signature process is beetling, the pounding of linen to flatten the fibres giving it a lustrous sheen and making the fabric ideal for strengthening tailored seams, a firm favourite in Saville Row. We are the last large scale commercial beetlers in the world.

Earthed began its life as Duncan Neil’s dream of creating a furnishing brand fully utilizing the colour possibilities digital print allows, while helping to keep UK textile manufacturing alive.

Duncan has been working in the UK textile industry for 12 years since graduating in 2004 from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design with a degree in Printed Textile Design. Graphic design had always been Duncan’s intention until at Art College he picked up a silk screen and squeedgee and fell in love with textile printing. With a career spanning design, education, fashion, interiors and production Duncan has designed for companies such as Betty Jackson and Marc Jacobs and produced fabrics for the likes of Andrew Martin, GP & J Baker, Matthew Williamson, Ralph Lauren Home, Romo and Vivienne Westwood.

Duncan joined William Clark in 2016 allowing this vision to grow combined with generations of skill built up here in Upperlands. The Upperlands Collection is our debut print range and features seven designs all inspired by our heritage of linen production working in conjunction with our local environment.

‘Flax Fields’ inspired by the crop harvested for linen, ‘Torrent’ celebrating the introduction of hydro power and the growth in our business this natural force allowed, ‘Faded Grandeur’ showing how nature has reclaimed some of our disused buildings and ‘Osmosis’ depicting the chemical reactions in water that are still so important in our processing – all the designs in this collection are personal to us and our work over the centuries here at William Clark.

Ethos

Here at William Clark we have always had a close relationship with our local environment. Earthed will always be inspired by our natural world and our legacy of linen. Colour is our passion, particularly the power it has to change our moods. With direct influence from Eastern trains of thought on how colour relates to the body we design fabrics that give interior spaces the power to uplift or calm us . We take immense pride in creating quality fabrics. Viewing colour is a very personal experience for all. It is important we establish how different colours make us feel; playing with proportions of use and balance to find colour schemes that make our individual spaces compliment our lives. All fabric design and preparation is done in-house by our experienced team including;

design development using traditional and digital techniques

singeing the fabric to give it the optimum printing surface

bleaching to give an inviting ecru base colour

digital pre-coat to ensure fixation of our print colours

printing on our reactive digital printer

steaming to fix the dyes

wash off to remove the excess dyes

finishing to give the linens a beautiful handle

inspection to ensure we deliver you a quality product

Quality

Earthed and William Clark are proud members of the Irish Linen Guild, an organization with seven members which strives to preserve the quality of fabric produced in Ireland and a seal of quality. We only use fabric produced locally in Northern Ireland.

Earthed

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