James Hare

James Hare set up in a cottage on Clare Street in Leeds in 1865, buying odd lengths of fabric and selling them to train drivers and guards, who in turn sold them on to London tailors. Hearing that Queen Victoria was gravely ill, he sank all his savings into black serge; on her death the company sold 250,000 metres of black cloth.

It became a full cloth manufacturing mill and the largest stockist of Harris Tweed in the world. In the 1980s the woollen merchant and manufacturing business was sold, along with the Hare of England brand, and the company re-established itself as a silk merchant, becoming the leading supplier to the bridal and fashion trade. It went on to stock the largest colour range of silk dupion in Europe, and built its interiors plain silk range to more than six hundred shades.

The 150th anniversary brought a visit from the Princess Royal, who was shown round the warehouse and the design and pattern department and unveiled a plaque. The company is still owned and run by the Hare family, and Saffron Hare became its first female managing director.

Six hundred shades of plain silk is a specific kind of useful. When a customer has a colour in their head and nothing else will do, this is the book that usually has it.