Woven-Words

I recently visited the mill where Brentano’s pattern Equinox is woven. Accompanying me during the visit was Senior Designer Aaron Mensik and National Sales Manager Jeff Frank.   Located in a rural city of New Jersey, it was drizzling and damp when we arrived at the entrance of the warehouse style building.   At the opposite side of the doors – a forest stood tall – damp with sparse yellow and orange leaves still dangling on  branches. The fall color of the foliage brightened the grey sky and the metal siding.

To much surprise, when we walked in a pleasant display of  Brentano fabrics greeted us.  We later found out that one employee in particular  prepared the fabric display for our arrival.  I very much appreciated the Mills effort to make us feel welcomed.

We first visited the Jacquard weaving room.  Within the one room, approximately 60 looms were weaving at the same time.  We could hardly hear our guide explaining the weaving procedures.  We saw many beautiful fabrics being woven, including one of Brentano’s best sellers, Equinox. Equinox is woven on a very fine, dense, nylon warp.  Fine for the purpose of color clarity , dense for the purpose of defined rendering, and nylon for performance level abrasion.

It was such a joy to see our fabric being woven on the loom.  As you can tell from our facial expressions in the photos – pure happiness.

The trip was educational, so besides observing the fabrics on the loom, we toured all departments such as design, CAD for weaving, yarn control, winding, warping, final inspection of the goods, etc.

It was near 2:00 pm when we finished the tour and said our goodbyes. While we were waiting for our ride,  I noticed in the vestibule window a beautiful pattern forming from the condensation. Maybe it will one day become a fabric pattern.