Getting the measure of the textiles market

FUTURE PROOF: TabetexA Cavan textiles group founded by an Italian immigrant has survived the death of the sector in Ireland and our love affair with leather seating

OVER 50 YEARS ago the then Industrial Development Authority offered support to Italian-born Luciano Vergnano to set up a textiles manufacturing plant in Cavan. Today the business is run by his sons, Richard and Mark, and continues to supply curtain and upholstery fabrics to furniture manufacturers in the UK and Ireland.

If you’ve bought your sofa from MS or DFS, for example, there’s a good chance the fabric was made by Tabetex.

On paper the business should not have survived into the second generation. Sustained low-cost competition has virtually wiped out the indigenous textiles and furniture industries, and Tabetex is one of only a handful of companies left standing in the sector.

Ten years ago it was dealt what was nearly the killer blow – the Irish consumers’ love affair with leather.

With frightening speed for Tabetex, the casual seating market changed from predominantly fabric upholstered furniture to predominantly leather, taking roughly two-thirds of the company’s business with it.

“There was an explosion of leather and leather-look sofas, almost all imported from the Far East. Within six years it went from approximately 90 per cent fabric-covered sofas and chairs and 10 per cent leather to 70 per cent leather,” says Richard Vergnano. “This had a double whammy effect on us – firstly fabric sales suffered, but also our customer base was heavily hit as it wasn’t able to produce leather/leather-look sofas at anywhere close to the prices of the imports.

“Many have since closed and the furniture manufacturing industry in the UK and Ireland is now only a fraction of what it once was.”

In response Tabetex cut its costs to the bone and Vergnano says it is now at the point where any further cuts would be counterproductive.

“Despite cost-cutting measures we were clearly never going to be the lowest cost producer so we looked instead at what our strengths were and how we could maximise the benefits.

“These strengths included being closer to our markets, having faster new design development, being more flexible in production and offering much quicker lead times. In my Dad’s day the company produced probably two ranges a year. We produce four or five every two months.”

Another of the things Tabetex had going for it was that the company had invested heavily in a new plant during the 1990s. This allowed it to weave faster and greatly increased its design capacity.

“We focused on developing close relationships with a number of key customers and working with them on exclusive designs for their new products. We’re smaller in scale than many of our competitors and we’ve tried to use this to our advantage by being more flexible, weaving shorter runs and turning schedules around to accommodate urgent orders,” Vergnano says.

“Our aim is to provide our customers with a lower overall cost to their business that goes beyond the price per metre. We do this by enabling them to hold less stock, ensuring they have little or no redundant stock after ranges end; they have no issues with quality – particularly in terms of colour consistency from batch to batch – and they [have] fewer personnel tied up in monitoring their supply chain. All of this allows them to take advantage of any sudden opportunities presented by their customers.”

Vergnano says one of the keys to ensuring the business survives to the next generation is staying a step ahead of interior trends.

“We’ve had great help from Enterprise Ireland with the design and trends side of things, and we’ve also invested in advanced design software systems that will allow us to develop new collections faster. Speed of turnaround is becoming increasingly important as interior trends are now changing so rapidly that our industry is beginning to resemble the fashion industry.”

Vergnano says he is more optimistic for the business now than he has been for some time.

Helping his upbeat mood is the fact that the interior design pendulum is swinging back in Tabetex’s favour.

“The minimalist interior is very much yesterday’s look, and tastes are evolving into a multicolour, more patterned, somewhat eclectic environment with a resultant increase in demand for fabrics,” he says.

“Compared with leather, importing low-cost fabric sofas is also not an easy option for furniture retailers because of the different patterns and greater range of colour options involved.”

Tabetex is now looking toward export markets and dipping its toe into a new product range to drive future growth. So far this year sales in Ireland are steady but the company has almost doubled its sales in the UK.

In a completely new departure the company is considering the possibility of developing a range of small ticket home furnishings. Subject to successful final negotiations, its first foray into this market will be with the giant US shopping channel QVC, for which it is hoping to make a woven throw product for St Patrick’s Day 2013.