Supporting British Industry & Craftsmanship
Ivo Textiles is a family-owned textile and wallpaper printing company founded in 1963. They are one of the largest textile printers in London and offer a range of printing methods including hand screen printing, flatbed, and digital printing. Other services include screen making, fabric preparation, finishing and storage. They work primarily in interior textiles printing furnishing fabrics and wallcoverings for many market leaders and also contract commissions for palaces, embassies, hotels and private residencies.
The company started in a Paddington Mews, founded by Ellen Haas and her cousin Ivo Tonder. They worked with fashion designers such as Ossie Clark and Celia Bertwell making their designs into a commercial form, so that it could be printed successfully.The business moved west and has been in its current premises, a 37,000 square foot factory since 1985. In the early days everything was hand printed and staff had to work around the clock to fulfil orders. Even now, hand printing is the heart of the business - with three 53-metre long manual screen-printing tables dominating the space. They also have an eight-colour rotary printing machine which prints continuous stripes; a flatbed printing machine which prints 500 metres an hour and two digital printing machines which produce wide-width wallpaper. In the colour kitchen, staff mix a tonne of colour a day. Ivo does around 330,000 metres of printing a year (55,000 metres of which is wallpaper).
"Due to my own family history of printing textiles I was fascinated to visit Ivo and it didn't disappoint. It was wonderful to see screen printing on this scale - especially as one of my favourite British designers, Fanny Shorter's work was on the table at the time. The whole space was a hive of activity with raw materials being organised and prepped, inks being mixed by eye, rotary machines whirring, fabric pleating - all under the watchful of eye of Howard 'Podge' Voyce who has worked for Ivo for 45 years and is a legend at the factory and beyond...." Carmel King photographed Ivo Prints in July 2021 for Made in London.
