Celebrating Wales’ Heritage and Textiles Industry
02-07-2014
The Prince of Wales (pictured right) joined Creative Skillset Cymru fashion and textiles apprentices and employers, traditional woollen mill representatives and a number of industry representatives at Melin Tregwynt Woollen Mill in Castlemorris, west Wales.
His visit is part of his continuing commitment to raise awareness of the unique, natural and sustainable benefits offered by wool, and to support Wales’ fashion and textiles industry and its apprenticeship programme; and encouraging collaboration within the industry to ensure continued sustainability and skills retention in Wales.
Gwawr Thomas, Director of Creative Skillset Cymru explains why Creative Skillset Cymru has invested in Wales’ first Fashion and Textiles Apprenticeship programme:
“The Creative Industries in Wales are world-renowned and make a significant contribution to the Welsh economy and its growth.
“Fashion and textiles is a major sub-sector of Wales’ Creative Industries, employing just under 10,000 people across almost 3,000 enterprises. However, the sector has undergone much change in recent years. Globalisation has led to outsourcing and off-shore manufacturing and competition from low cost countries. This has meant a large-scale decline in the numbers of people employed, and businesses have had to adapt their strategies to find their niche within a competitive environment. In conjunction to this, businesses are also reliant on an ageing experienced workforce specialist skills. This could potentially create a problem concerning the replacement of people approaching retirement and succession planning; hence attracting new talent and developing the skills of the workforce is paramount to the continued growth of the industry.
“In 2011 Creative Skillset Cymru was approached by the Prince of Wales to see if anything could be done to help revive the textiles industry and support the development of talented new entrants into the fashion and textiles sector. On behalf of industry, we developed the Creative Skillset Cymru Fashion and Textiles Apprenticeship pilot programme, which aims to support the growth and sustainability of the industry by attracting and recruiting new talent, and deliver innovative training to ensure the apprentices develop the necessary skills to become the best in their field, and meet the needs of industry to ensure business growth and economic development in Wales.
“The Creative Skillset Cymru Fashion and Textiles Apprenticeship programme has given talented individuals the opportunity to begin their careers in well-known Welsh organisations such as Corgi Hosiery, Melin Tregwynt, AJM Sewing, Anderson Apparel and Resist Studio Gallery.”
Creative Skillset Cymru is delivering the pilot programme, Level 2 Apprenticeship in Fashion and Textiles via Coleg Sir Gâr; a college of further and higher education based in Carmarthenshire. Creative Skillset Cymru also offers a range of Creative and Digital Media Apprenticeships across Wales. The Creative Skillset Cymru Apprenticeship programme is supported by £1.1 million from the Welsh Government’s Sector Priorities Fund Programme (SPFP) which is part funded by the European Social Fund. To date almost 80 brand new job roles have been created by Creative and Digital Media and Fashion and Textiles businesses across Wales.
