013: Good News for Stoke & Staffordshire
Belstaff Come Home, Lymelight Festival Brings in Crowds, Archives Open, NUL Markets Improve, Narrow Boater Falls in Love with Stoke-on-Trent.
Good News 🎉
Headline 👇🏼
Belstaff Come Home for 100 Year Exhibition. This weekend saw Belstaff return to Longton, Stoke-on-Trent, and celebrate their centenary. On Friday they showcased their new Autumn/Winter collection to a star-studded line-up of celebrities, influencers and press. Many of whom had been shipped up from London on the British Pullman. Guests included adventurer Levison Wood, olympian Denise Lewis, ex-England Rugby captain Chris Robshaw, boxer Nathan Heaney and a whole host of influencers with many more followers than we all have (including the train influencer called Francis something).
The three day showcase included a pop-up cafe by Slamwich Club, an archive yard sale, an afternoon tea for former Belstaff staff, a short film and exhibitions from the Belstaff clothing collection.
This was a top notch event in Stoke. Belstaff showcased what good looks like, setting a high-bar for production quality and how to blend the past with the future to meet the present. Not only were there Trailmaster jackets from 60 years ago, but also the brand new Ineos Grenadier 4x4 Belstaff edition too. Gladstone Pottery set the scene and the iconic bottle kilns amassed great attention from a celebrity crowd on Friday who’d probably never heard of them, or been to Stoke before.
The question now is how will Belstaff deepen it’s Stoke-on-Trent heritage, if at all? From the attention the exhibition drew from the local crowd, there’s an appetite for a renewed connection with Belstaff, but what that looks like will have to emerge in the coming months and years. For now we have a beautiful mural in Longton that honours Belstaff’s legacy created by Rob Fenton and Ethan Lemon, let’s hope that becomes a permanent feature as well as Belstaff’s continued commitment to maintain its connection to home.
Belstaff’s homecoming has connected local people with the brand’s legacy, giving way to pride in the craftsmanship born here. They’ve shown us what good looks like and reminded a City in need of a confidence boost, what it’s capable of.
More Good News 🤩
Lymelight Festival Brings in the Crowds. The music festival in Newcastle took on all the elements to show it’s a stellar event in a stellar town that’s not going anywhere and is very capable of drawing crowds.
New Home for City Archives. A new reading room has been created at The Potteries Museum and Art Gallery to become the home for Stoke’s 8,000 boxes of archives. This includes 2,500 outsize packages and items (including maps and plans), 137 Minton Design Folios (containing just over 30,000 individual designs), 30,000 audio tapes and 30,000 books. That’s one way to protect our heritage.
Newcastle Market Improvement to Begin. £390,000 is being spent in Newcastle-under-Lyme to improve the markets. This includes refurbished stalls, rent-free stalls for traders on Mondays, a public space running through the centre and more parking space for traders. There is also discussion on a large digital screen to watch big national events - yes to this.
KNOT HAVING IT ❌
This narrow boater and his family are not having criticism of Stoke-on-Trent. Dust off your Facebook account and take a look at this stunning photography of Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire canals. Head to Facebook and peruse how this narrow boater (by Bike & Boat) has fallen for Stoke-on-Trent. A photo of their narrow boat moored in Hanley Park caused quite a stir as Stoke-on-Trent Facebook users were quick to deter the family from mooring there for safety reasons and the owner of the account found himself defending the place. Once again, the very residents of where we live become it’s harshest critics and outsiders with a beginners mind see beauty and potential.
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Editor’s Note
The Belstaff event in Longton left me feeling all churned up. Within the bubble of the exhibition it was an exciting look to the future of what Stoke could be. Friday saw the dynamic energy of London’s creative scene within the old Potbank’s grounds and gave it life and buzz. Yet when the exhibition ended and the Belstaff signs dismantled, a mural remained and not much else.
Longton, like many towns in this area needs a lot of love and attention. Some of which it’s getting and you can see signs of regeneration in the Exchange through the activity of Urban Wilderness and others.
I’d be lying though if I said I was positive and hopeful all of the time. Sometimes I look at the scale of our challenges and I wonder if I’m deluded to believe there’s a positive future. Seeing deprivation and decline up close places my feet firmly on the ground. There is hope and we have to admit, for many here, there is poverty and despair. I’m left with no doubt that for us to turn our region around every single person has to be pulling in the same direction, every one has to want to make it work and only then will we have a chance. We need an army of advocates who are not just willing to champion our place, but are willing to fight for it too.
Cheers,
James
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