GMI Property Company have backed the initiative taken in summer 2009 by their in-house planning lawyer, Carolyn Lord and some of their professional consultants, Suzy Shepherd, Paul Forbes OBE and members of Arup’s team, to form a multi-disciplinary project for the Leeds City Region – Leeds Fashion Works. The project uses fashion’s appeal to form linkages with communities, schools, colleges and universities in the area to business and in particular to promote the region’s textile and fashion-related industries in a range of creative ways which have hit national and international press.

In May 2011 and actively supported by the Leeds, York and North Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce, Leeds Fashion Works launched ‘Behind the Seams at Armley Mills’ with Leeds City Council, Hainsworth Mill and leading textile designer Susan Gaunt. Sculptor Peter Maris and photographer Sandis Kajins are also represented in the new galleries that have been opened at the international class Leeds Industrial Museum. Leeds Fashion works have made available on permanent loan the high quality exhibition ‘Behind the Seams’ which was created in 2009 by Skillfast UK to celebrate 50 fashion and textile skills heroes. The interactive exhibition encourages young people to consider entering a range of careers which they may otherwise not get a chance to familiarise themselves with. It is backed up by the Unzipped Studio, another of the former Skillfast UK’s innovations where young people in schools and colleges get tasters in different dimensions of the fashion industry.

Carolyn and her colleagues in Leeds Fashion Works have a range of other community and education based plans which are being worked up with the Chamber of Commerce and Leeds City Council.

View the ’Behind the Seams at Armley Mills’ press pack

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Students from Leeds Metropolitan University add innovative design features to the new Behind the Seams gallery, located in the early nineteenth century mill building, once the largest woollen mill in the world
The newly designed blinds in situ
Students from Leeds City College’s Hospitality Department prepare for the launch event, attended by over 150 people
Suzy Shepherd (independent retail and marketing consultant), Carolyn Lord, Curator Nina Baptiste and Rachel Reeves MP address guests at the launch event
The launch event – May 2011
GMI’s James Poskitt and Carolyn Lord at the launch event as the rush subsides
Leeds Metropolitan University art students after their work has been installed
James Poskitt, Suzy Shepherd and Carolyn Lord
Nina Baptiste, curator of Armley Mills Museum, explains the Unzipped Studio to guests at the launch event
Paul Forbes OBE, Cllr Adam Ogilvie (Leeds City Council Executive Member for Leisure) and Carolyn Lord
Stone sculptor, Peter Maris, artist in residence at the Millspace studio in Armley Mills, enjoys the opening of his textile inspired show
Textile designer Susan Gaunt with her brother William Gaunt in their new Sunnybank Woven Textile Archive ‘sampler’ gallery at Armley Mills
Armley Mills and Hainsworths have brought the original mill machinery back to life
Hainsworths Mill in Farsley, Leeds, produce the specialist cloth for the Queen’s Guards’ uniforms, as worn by Prince William on his wedding day
Hainsworths’ natural wool coffins
‘Herringbone’ sculpture by Peter Maris, inspired by fabric from Susan Gaunt’s Sunnybank Textile Archive
‘Tapestry’, commissioned from Peter Maris by Leeds Fashion Works and Yorkshire Textiles, was displayed in Harvey Nichols for 2 months in 2010 and is now on loan to Behind the Seams at Armley Mills