Made in England
Designed For Top Pockets Everywhere
Made in England
Otway & Orford work with trusted partners to create our stylish and unique silk pocket squares. This ensures we tap into the skills and experience available in the traditional home of English silk printing and only work with people who can do justice to the collaborations with our talented artists and our fresh take on classic archive designs.
Our pocket squares start in the hands of highly experienced textile designers. For our car, plane and sport art designs (the 'Passions'), the scaling of the image and the choice of complementary border and hem are crucial to the artists' original vibrant works transitioning successfully into desirable silk pocket squares. For our 'Fresh Classics' designs, the start point is a rich archive located in Macclesfield, Cheshire. Our designers adapt and re-colour pocket squares dating back many years and this lends them a real freshness that makes them perfect for today.
Macclesfield, involved in the silk industry since the eighteenth century, is where we work with the UK's leading pocket square maker. They manage the unique designs through the production process from beginning to end, which includes using water from their own picturesque reservoir (see header image) fed by the River Bollin. They are able to retain the colour and detail of the original works of art during printing and ensure the overall quality of the finished hand-sewn pocket squares, a standard of quality you would normally only expect to find on Savile Row and Jermyn Street. We produce in small batches allowing us to order only what we need, with no waste.
Using the finest quality Mulberry silk woven into silk twill contributes to the high-quality reproduction of the designs and gives the characteristic sheen and cool touch you expect with top end silk pocket squares. The reproduction of complex imagery and designs, with multiple colours and sometimes visible brushwork, is also enabled by highly accurate digital printing. During the printing process in Macclesfield, we focus not only on the printed side of the pocket squares but also on the non-printed reverse side using environmentally friendly water-based inks to ensure an excellent balance between the image strength on both sides. This means that our full-size and medium-size pocket squares look great whatever fold is used.
Following printing in Macclesfield, the final stage is the labour-intensive and skilful hand-rolling and hand-sewing of the pocket square hems. The edge of the silk has to be gently turned over with a handheld needle and small stitches then inserted around the edge. The result is the traditional ‘shoestring’ hem with its distinctive look and feel, characteristic of top-quality pocket squares.
Following a final quality check, the finished pocket squares are sent to us in London, where they are carefully tissue-wrapped and placed in their smart and robust Otway & Orford branded gift boxes. The gift boxes, with their blueberry-coloured lids and pale blue bases, use recycled board and are manufactured for us in East London by a fifth generation family run packaging manufacturer.
Made in England, our Otway & Orford pocket squares are now ready to travel to a top pocket somewhere in the world, either as a stylish and meaningful self-purchase or as a thoughtful gift.