With more than 35 years of experience in woven textile design, Andrea Noble brings a wealth of creative and technical expertise to her role as Design & Product Development Manager at AW Hainsworth. Her career has taken her from textile design studios and leading British retailers to education, interiors and bespoke fabric development.
Since joining Hainsworth in 2019, Andrea has played a key role in developing the company’s bespoke service, working closely with customers and production teams to transform ideas into unique, high-quality woven products across fashion, interiors, ceremonial, military and blanket applications.
We caught up with Andrea to find out more about her career, creative influences and approach to bespoke fabric development.
I’ve worked in woven textile design for more than 35 years. Throughout that time, I’ve worked across a wide variety of roles, developing my skills in design, aesthetics, fabric construction and creative thinking.
What I particularly enjoy is the variety. Every project presents a different challenge, whether that’s creating something entirely new, responding to a customer brief or understanding how a fabric will behave through manufacturing and finishing.
That breadth of experience has given me a strong understanding of both the creative and technical sides of textile development, which I draw on every day at Hainsworth.
My career has taken me through many different areas of the textile industry. As an undergraduate, I gained experience in textile design studios in New York and London, as well as with a large textile group in Lancashire.
After completing my degree in Woven Textiles for Fashion, I joined a Marks & Spencer supplier specialising in fine cotton formalwear shirts. I worked closely with the cotton mill to develop new designs and created trend-led presentations for the Marks & Spencer head office.
I then moved to Debenhams, where I became part of a large design team creating fabrics for men’s formalwear and casualwear.
In 2000, I moved from London to Yorkshire to become a Woven Textile Design Tutor and Course Leader at Bradford School of Art. I spent 17 years teaching across two textile courses, covering subjects including drawing, professional employment, design history and Dobby and Jacquard weaving.
Being surrounded by the rich textile heritage of Bradford and West Yorkshire was hugely inspiring and continues to influence me today.
In 2012, I completed a Master’s degree in Textile Innovation, developing an experimental residential interiors collection of blankets and decorative fabrics. I later worked as a residential interior fabric designer for Heild Furnishings before joining Hainsworth in 2019.
I initially joined the business in Sales before helping to develop our bespoke service, which has gone from strength to strength. Today, I manage bespoke product development projects across a wide range of fabric qualities and applications, from ceremonial and fashion fabrics to blankets and interior upholstery. I’m also involved in trend prediction and projects such as the London College of Fashion Bespoke Tailoring Project.
I love the variety and the range of product categories I get to work across. There’s a real satisfaction in taking an idea and finding a way to make it work within commercial and technical parameters.
One of Hainsworth’s strengths is understanding how a fabric will change throughout the wet and dry finishing processes. What comes off the loom isn’t necessarily what the final product will look or feel like, so we have to anticipate those changes from the beginning.
I also love the collaborative nature of the design process. Creating a unique, high-quality product requires input from customers, designers, technical experts and production teams. Seeing a development progress from the initial idea through sampling and approval, into production and finally dispatch, is one of the most satisfying parts of my role.
For me, there isn’t one single starting point. It depends on the brief and what the fabric needs to achieve.
Fitness for purpose is fundamental. We need to understand the intended end use and the characteristics required from the fibre, yarn, fabric and finished product. From there, we can consider elements such as colour, texture, construction and handle.
The beauty of woven textiles is that all these elements are interconnected. The choice of yarn influences the construction, which influences the texture and handle, while colour can completely change the character of the finished fabric.
Ultimately, the goal is to bring everything together to create something that is technically appropriate, visually beautiful and meets the customer’s expectations.
First, know what you want to create, but be willing to discuss the possibilities with us and work collaboratively to find the best way to achieve it.
It’s also important to allow enough time for research, development, sampling and refinement. Creating something genuinely unique and luxurious takes time, particularly when the finished product needs to be repeatable and commercially producible.
I’d encourage customers to embrace the development process. Sometimes the most interesting results come from exploring an idea and discovering what’s possible rather than trying to specify every detail from the outset.
Nature is my biggest source of inspiration, particularly our environment and the way we interact with it.
I’ve always been fascinated by the organic shapes, textures, colours and imperfections found in the natural world. These details can provide a starting point for everything from a colour palette to a weave structure or surface texture.
My experience in Yorkshire has also had a huge influence on me. The region’s textile heritage, landscapes and artistic history continue to inspire my approach to design.
I think inspiration is often about being observant. You can find ideas in unexpected places if you take the time to really look at your surroundings.
The best days are when I have multiple projects in action across the mill, each at a different stage of completion.
I’ll often get my mill shoes on and walk through production to check progress and sign off different stages of development. It’s important to see what’s happening first-hand, make sure we’re achieving what the customer expects and record each stage so the process can be repeated consistently.
Because we have such a close connection between design, development and manufacturing, I can follow a project throughout its journey. One moment I might be reviewing a customer brief or sample, and the next I could be on the mill floor looking at a fabric being woven or finished.
That hands-on involvement is one of the things I love most about working at Hainsworth.
There’s a lot to look forward to. I’m particularly excited to see the dispatch of the Simons Tartan Blanket and the development of our new ‘The Wolds’ New Zealand Merino blanket project with Exquisite Wool Traders.
I’m also looking forward to continuing our work on the London College of Fashion Bespoke Tailoring Project for 2026–27.
Perhaps most excitingly, we’re seeing our strategy to develop interiors upholstery, blankets and throws really come to fruition. With the Bed Show and Heimtextil trade shows on the horizon for 2026 and 2027, it’s an exciting time for Hainsworth as we introduce new products and capabilities to the interiors market.
Wool is vital – now more than ever.
It’s an incredibly versatile fibre, offering a combination of performance and natural beauty that makes it suitable for a huge range of applications. Merino wool, in particular, is wonderful to work with from a design perspective, creating beautiful colour, texture and handle while lending itself to both traditional and innovative fabric construction.
At a time when we’re thinking more carefully about the materials we use and the longevity of the products we buy, natural fibres such as wool have an increasingly important role to play.
That’s a difficult question because there are so many!
At the moment, I’d have to say Khaki Whipcord, Doeskin, Duffle and Granite. In fact, I have some of these fabrics at home waiting for me to get around to making a coat, trousers and a waistcoat. That’s probably the ultimate test of how much I love a fabric – wanting to make something for myself!
From a designer’s perspective, I appreciate fabrics that have strong character and versatility, and these qualities are certainly reflected in some of my favourites.
From a passion for textile design and construction to a career spanning fashion, interiors, education and bespoke development, Andrea’s experience brings a unique perspective to her role at AW Hainsworth.
As new interiors, upholstery and blanket collections take shape, Andrea and the wider Hainsworth team continue to explore what is possible with wool, weaving and finishing, creating fabrics designed not only to look beautiful, but to perform beautifully too.