The worldwide market for luxury goods is growing as prosperity and disposable income expands, particularly in rapidly developing countries. The West Midlands has real strength in these markets and a wide range of creative businesses and leading brands.
Household names such as Brintons Carpets, Johnson Tiles, Sharps Bedrooms, Aga and Wedgwood are based in the region, along with other manufacturers of furniture, furnishings, textiles, carpets, floor and wall coverings, kitchens, bedrooms, bathrooms, ceramics, lighting, window products, interior architecture, fixtures and fittings.
The West Midlands also has an extraordinary wealth of design-led companies covering jewellery and silverware, fashion, clothing and accessories, travel-goods, leather-goods, sports and leisure goods, homeware, giftware and artware. Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter is a thriving real-life example of a cluster in action.
The cluster has a good supply of entrepreneurial new designers from the region’s university design schools and specialist colleges and also a sizeable community of manufacturers of design-led contract furniture supplying offices, hotels, hotel ware and restaurant sectors, even cruise ships.
Achievements
• Net Infinity was the main programme established to deliver the interiors and lifestyle cluster programme 2005-2008 (formerly the High Value Added Consumer Products Cluster) and has worked with more than 200 companies across the region’s consumer goods sectors which include ceramics, glass, jewellery, fashion, leathergoods and furniture. The programme has also promoted the adoption of design as a key business driver and has brought together designers and manufacturers, enabling new products to be developed and showcased at major UK and international exhibitions.
Business-led networks have enabled collaboration between member companies, creating new joint ventures, strengthening supply chains and increasing sales, for example:
• Centrepiece, a group of 20 designer jewellers, based in Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter has increased its collective annual turnover by two thirds, and it has recently increased its membership to 32.
• Unidesk Ltd, a finalist in the 2007 Industry & Genius Awards is a new business that has developed versatile and posturally advanced IT furniture. The company’s product range was developed by Witley Jones Ltd, a Stourport based manufacturer and Ian Angus and David Rowe Designs (Redditch), who first met through the Furniture West Midlands network.
Target Markets 2008 - 11
In the 2008-11 programme, the cluster will focus on two market areas: Interiors and Lifestyle; and within them, on four market segments that offer particular opportunity for growth, both in the UK and internationally.
High design interiors:
• High value contract markets (via architects, specifiers etc.)
• High end retail
Design-led lifestyle products:
• High end retail
• Direct-to-customer markets
The cluster will implement 2 main projects:
• NewPathways will bring together action groups of businesses to collaboratively exploit the opportunities offered by the four target market segments both in the UK and internationally and by the application of new technologies and materials to inform new product design for these markets.
• Interior and Lifestyle Cluster Networks builds on the successes of Net Infinity. It will support a range of collaborative activities fostering relationships between businesses and the knowledge base working in partnership with cluster stakeholder organisations.