 | |
| Founded | 1964 |
|---|---|
| Founder | Trend Mills |
| Headquarters | Industriezone Klein Frankrijk Weverijstraat 1, 9600 Ronse |
| Products | carpet |
| Parent | Belgotex International Group |
| Website | www.associated-weavers.com |
Associated Weavers International Group is currently a Belgian textile manufacturing company. The company head office and production plant is located in Ronse.
A company with the name "Associated Weavers" was founded in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England and run by the Abrahams family. By the early 1970s the site in Tong employed 2,500 people and was the world's largest producer of Axminster woven carpets and Europe's largest producer of tufted printed carpets. At that time the company was principally led by managing director Jack Collins, commercial director David Croft and the marketing and design director Michael Kelly.
In 1964, the American carpet manufacturer Trend Mills started producing carpet in Ronse, Belgium. [1]
In 1969, an American concern Champion International took over the plant in Ronse and in 1973 the British Associated Weavers in Bradford. The production of tufted broadloom carpet was moved to the location in Ronse. Although at one time the company produced one in seven of all carpets bought in the UK, it was not a widely known brand name. [2]
Due to a rapid contraction of the UK carpet sector the Bradford site was sold in the early 1980s; and in 1984 Champion International decided to withdraw from the carpet industry altogether. The result was a management buy-out, in 1984, followed by the establishment of the holding company "Associated Weavers International". [3]
In 1990 the company acquired Prado, which was founded in 1909 as Tissage Van de Wiele as a weaving mill for furnishing fabrics, Prado makes both woven and tufted wall-to-wall carpet and rugs. [4]
In 1997 the company registered on the Brussels Stock Exchange as the first Belgian carpet manufacturer. [5]
In 1998 the company acquired a factory in Liberec, Czech Republic for mainly labour-intensive work such as finishing carpets and rugs.
In 2001 it took over the French company, Balsan, specialising in broadloom carpet for contract applications such as hotels, public buildings, schools, etc.
Since 2010, Associated Weavers International is part of Belgotex International Group. [6]
Associated Weavers had been pursuing for years a volume strategy in the medium-low segment of the market and was seeking in vain to achieve satisfying business results.
The strategy was adjusted by a heavy emphasis on the development of trendy, value-for-money products brought into market via innovative marketing concepts. Investments were made in a complete rebranding, with the new logo integrating the tagline “Carpet your life” as the prime feature.
The slogan “Carpet your life” is no less than an invitation to the end consumer to choose a carpet from among a series of new collections offered in an inviting “Butterfly” display per colour, based on five universal life styles.
Belgian newspapers published in September 2021 news [7] about the pollution from PFAS in Ronse, linking it to the presence of textile industries in the town.
Weaving is a method of textile production in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads are interlaced at right angles to form a fabric or cloth. Other methods are knitting, crocheting, felting, and braiding or plaiting. The longitudinal threads are called the warp and the lateral threads are the weft, woof, or filling. The method in which these threads are interwoven affects the characteristics of the cloth. Cloth is usually woven on a loom, a device that holds the warp threads in place while filling threads are woven through them. A fabric band that meets this definition of cloth can also be made using other methods, including tablet weaving, back strap loom, or other techniques that can be done without looms.
Ronse is a Belgian city and a municipality in the Flemish province of East Flanders. The municipality only encompasses the city of Ronse proper.
A carpet is a textile floor covering typically consisting of an upper layer of pile attached to a backing. The pile was traditionally made from wool, but since the 20th century synthetic fibers such as polypropylene, nylon, or polyester have often been used, as these fibers are less expensive than wool. The pile usually consists of twisted tufts that are typically heat-treated to maintain their structure. The term carpet is often used in a similar context to the term rug, but rugs are typically considered to be smaller than a room and not attached to the floor.
Tibetan rug making is an ancient, traditional craft. Tibetan rugs are traditionally made from Tibetan highland sheep's wool, called changpel. Tibetans use rugs for many purposes ranging from flooring to wall hanging to horse saddles, though the most common use is as a seating carpet. A typical sleeping carpet measuring around 3 ft × 5 ft is called a khaden.
A Persian carpet, Persian rug, or Iranian carpet is a heavy textile made for a wide variety of utilitarian and symbolic purposes and produced in Iran, for home use, local sale, and export. Carpet weaving is an essential part of Persian culture and Iranian art. Within the group of Oriental rugs produced by the countries of the "rug belt", the Persian carpet stands out by the variety and elaborateness of its manifold designs.
Chenille is a type of yarn, or the fabric made from it. Chenille is the French word for caterpillar, whose fur the yarn is supposed to resemble.
An oriental rug is a heavy textile made for a wide variety of utilitarian and symbolic purposes and produced in "Oriental countries" for home use, local sale, and export.
Shaw Industries Group, Inc. is one of the world's largest carpet manufacturers with more than $6 billion in annual revenue and approximately 22,000 employees worldwide. It is headquartered in Dalton, Georgia, and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway.
Anatolian rug or Turkish carpet is a term of convenience, commonly used today to denote rugs and carpets woven in Anatolia and its adjacent regions. Geographically, its area of production can be compared to the territories which were historically dominated by the Ottoman Empire. It denotes a knotted, pile-woven floor or wall covering which is produced for home use, local sale, and export, and religious purpose. Together with the flat-woven kilim, Anatolian rugs represent an essential part of the regional culture, which is officially understood as the Culture of Turkey today, and derives from the ethnic, religious and cultural pluralism of one of the most ancient centres of human civilisation.
Ryijy is a woven Finnish long-tufted tapestry or knotted-pile carpet hanging.
An Afghan rug is a type of handwoven floor-covering textile traditionally made in the northern and western areas of Afghanistan, mainly by Afghan Turkmens and Uzbeks. The industry is being expanded to all 34 provinces of Afghanistan.
The term Armenian carpet designates, but is not limited to, tufted rugs or knotted carpets woven in Armenia or by Armenians from pre-Christian times to the present. It also includes a number of flat woven textiles. The term covers a large variety of types and sub-varieties. Due to their intrinsic fragility, almost nothing survives—neither carpets nor fragments—from antiquity until the late medieval period.
The Dilmaghani family, the oldest existing manufacturers of hand knotted carpets and oriental rugs, can be traced back to the 1850s Qajar dynasty, Persia. In an industry which largely produces untitled items often identifiable only by experts, the history and lineage of any name relating to specific types of rugs for so many decades is unusual. Through the 1960s, the Dilmaghani family was still designing, manufacturing and importing Persian carpets from Iran to the United States. Dilmaghani is seen as an important connection of 19th and 20th century Persian rug and carpet production in and around the cities of Tabriz and Kermān. Dilmaghani remained as of 1980 among the best known names of branded hand knotted carpets.
Tai Ping Carpets International Ltd. is a global custom carpet company serving the architect and design community. Based in Hong Kong, Tai Ping Carpets operates flagship showrooms in New York City, Shanghai and Paris, as well as proprietary factories, design studios, and showrooms in 100 countries, over four continents.
Mohawk Industries is an American flooring manufacturer based in Calhoun, Georgia, United States. Mohawk produces floor covering products for residential and commercial applications in North America and residential applications in Europe. The company manufacturing portfolio consists of soft flooring products, hard flooring products, laminate flooring, sheet vinyl and luxury vinyl tile, natural stone and quartz countertops. In Europe, the company also produces and sells insulation, panels and mezzanine flooring. The company employs 43,000 people in operations in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Europe, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Russia and the United States. A Fortune 500 company, Mohawk is the worlds largest flooring manufacturer.
Jeffrey Lorberbaum is an American billionaire and the chairman and chief executive officer of Calhoun, Georgia-based Mohawk Industries, the world's largest flooring company.
Kapotex Industries is a manufacturer of woolen & other blends of carpet yarns used in the production of machine-made, hand-made rugs & broadloom wall-to-wall carpets. Headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra, it specializes in manufacturing yarns for Axminster Weaving, Face-to-Face Weaving, Wilton Jacquard Weaving, and Tufting Broadloom Carpets & Rugs including mechanized hand tufted & pass tufted carpets and rugs.
Roger Oates Design is a British company that designs, manufactures and retails flooring, fabric and interior products. The company is best known for Venetian Flatweave, a narrow width wool floorcovering usually fitted as a stair runner.
Anatolian animal carpets represent a special type of pile-woven carpet, woven in the geographical region of Anatolia during the Seljuq and early Ottoman period, corresponding to the 14th–16th century. Very few animal-style carpets still exist today, and most of them are in a fragmentary state. Animal carpets were frequently depicted by Western European painters of the 14th–16th century. By comparison of the few surviving carpets with their painted counterparts, these paintings helped to establish a timeline of their production, and support our knowledge about the early Turkish carpet.
Balsan is a French textile flooring company and market leader in its sector. With roots dating back to 1751 in Châteauroux, its origins are linked to the Royal Manufacture Château du Parc. The company is the fourth largest employer in the department of l’Indre.