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The jeans-and-jacketed director of group supply at Mulberry,Shop for Michael Kors Monogram at hotmkbags. Ian Scott, spurns his "executive washroom". Instead, makes a point of walking the thunderously noisy, 150m-ish length of the company's cavernous factory in Chilcompton, Somerset. This he does so he can chat with any of Mulberry's 270 expert on-site handbag makers who might want a word. And, he adds, so that they don't think that he's a hoity-toity "tosser". 

For hours, we linger together beneath the factory's red coil forest of compressed-air tubing and explore its seven U-shaped production lines. Between them, these produce 1,100 Mulberry handbags each week. Once packed, delivered and on sale, each bag will range in price from 895, for the Bayswater in natural tan being made on line five, to 3,000 for the Willow tote bag in midnight blue jacquard velvet (as seen on Mulberry's catwalk at Claridge's) under construction on line seven. From the prototype team to the quality-control team, each one undergoes hundreds of processes - including cutting, stitching, skiving and inking - before it is ready to go. 

Scott has an answer for every question thrown at him, however tricky. Why, for instance, have designer handbags (and shoes) so rocketed in cost over the past few years? Especially when the skin from which most are made is such an abundant by-product of the booming meat industry? With barely a pause, he replies that fierce competition from other luxury fashion houses, and car companies increasing their production of plush, leather-interior vehicles, has driven up leather prices. 

Where outside of Britain does Mulberry manufacture bags? Unblinkingly, Scott says that many (including all men's bags) are made in three Turkish factories also used by brands including Dunhill and Givenchy. The "small leather goods" (such as purses, wallets and phone-holders) are made in China, as is the Mulberry scotch-grain luggage spotted earlier in such abundance on the platforms of Bath Spa train station. 

Its production and clientele might be globalised, but Mulberry still defines itself by its Englishness. Three decades before it was bought out in 2003 by the Singaporean retail entrepreneur Christina Ong, the brand was born in the Somerset garage of 21-year-old Roger Saul, who named it after a tree he was fond of in the grounds of his old school. Today its advertising campaigns are set in English forests, by English seaside piers, or - as with this season - in owl-infested English country houses. Its creative director, Emma Hill (who will step down after this September's collection) has used everything from English ice cream to English dog lovers and English country gardens as inspiration for her clothes. 

Which is why, as Scott says: "We have made a decision as a business that we want at least 50 per cent of our manufacturing to be in the UK. We are a British brand,Save onChristian Louboutin Pump! All the Sales, All in One Place.Shop discounted mk handbags on hotmkbags. so we want to be making our goods in Britain." 

In 2006,welcome to michaels kors bags on sale,best service and low prices. this factory employed only 100 workers, of whom half were over 50, and 13 per cent over retirement age. By next year, in addition to the 270 here, Mulberry will employ a further 300 English workers at a new, 5 million factory an hour down the road in Bridgewater. This new facility, situated next to a Morrison's distribution centre but romantically called the Willows, will skew Mulberry's now-much-younger workforce (30 per cent are over 50, and 30 per cent under 40) further towards youth - many employees on its 10 new production lines will be apprentices from the local college. The cost of their training has, in part, been met by a 2.5 million government grant, paid in instalments over several years and dispensed by a fund dedicated to creating jobs in areas of low employment and opportunity. 

Yet, as a veteran of many factory visits in France and Italy, I find it strangely exciting to encounter in England a facility that appears to match those, in scale, professionalism and expertise. I think I might be a geek too. 

Five months ago, Mulberry hired Fabio del Perugia, a gap-toothed and grizzled 60-something Italian leather goods maestro who has spent his life as an artisan in factories in Morocco,welcome to michaels kors handbags sale,Free shipping‎! China and Portugal - as well as Italy. "Gucci, Prada, Ferragamo: for us the leather is an important tradition," he says with an Italianate shrug. "Here, there is not so much this tradition, but the quality is good and we are producing on a higher and higher level. And I like England - although the people the mentality is not as friendly as in Italy." 

On the floor, almost everyone wears polo shirts with the Mulberry tree logo (designed by Roger Saul's sister) over their hearts; most wear grey (production-line workers), black shirts are the managers, while white shirts (or occasionally lab jackets) are the quality-control specialists. 

Amy Andrews, 29, is Mulberry's raw materials production technologist - and the star of this page, pictured right, alongside Cara Delevingne. After posing gamely with the grey felt prototype of the Alexa bag and a leather-measuring tool used in the absence of Delevingne's owl, she explains her complicated title. She's responsible for the quality of the leather used to make every single handbag. Each model, in each colour, has a "master skin" - a template against which all resulting bags are measured. 

"I would say 90 per cent of our leathers are from Italy, where they inspect everything against our standard before it is shipped. And then they come to us for a final yes or no." A former employee of a Yeovil tannery, she adds: "Every skin is different, so it's handy to know how the leathers are made." 

Grey-shirted Rosie Daly, 23, has just returned to work after four months at home with her new daughter, Poppy. Sitting on a galvanised iron stairwell, she says she joined Mulberry as an apprentice after realising that her first job - as a hair stylist - had only limited prospects. First as an apprentice, then as a stitcher, she has been with the company for five years. Now her job is to manage the training of each new wave of apprentices: today there is a group on their first day. "Their first week is just about getting connected and getting to know each other. A lot of people who do come, as soon as they walk in the factory I don't think they ever imagine it is going to be as big and loud as it is. It can be quite daunting, until you get placed in a line and introduced to everyone. A lot of people live close, and there are a lot of friends here." 

One of the first things apprentices notice are the large laminated price signs - 1,100, or maybe 1,800, or even 3,000 - positioned at the end of each line. This, says Daly, is to remind workers of the cost of the bags they are crafting: "It's not just about getting them down the line, getting your bonus and getting home. These are hand-made bags, bags that people pay a lot of money for, and the signs remind you of that."

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