A Concise History of the Sewing Machine Trade Association
Our trade association was established in the 1930’s by a group of
sewing machine dealers whose livelihood in part was supplying machinery to
garment factories. At that time most sewing machinery originated from the
USA and Germany and distribution throughout the United Kingdom was a “closed-shop” of
company branches. Dealers were not recognised and it was impossible for them
to obtain machines and more importantly spare parts. Thanks to the dedication
of our “founding father” David Rose, a London based dealer who
petitioned dealers throughout the country over a number of years, our Association
was founded to force machine manufacturers to change their monopoly practices.
The
advent of the Second World War saw the temporary end of monopoly practices.
Sewing equipment and the engineers who serviced the industry were soon playing
an important and strategic part in our war effort. There was an attempt by
manufacturers to revert to their old pre-war trade policies but dealers and
our Trade Association were now a powerful and important force. By the mid
1950’s the SMDA was recognised as the organisation for independent
sewing machine dealers. It was now the turn of dealers who were not members
of our Association to suffer since they were now denied access to machines
and parts.
The consumer-led revolution of the 1960’s witnessed a major change
in the purchasing habits of the Western world. A fashion conscious population
were now spending some of their new found wealth on clothing, resulting in
a proliferation of garment factories and a need for dealers to become more
specialised to service clothing manufacturers. At the same time High Street
spending expanded and domestic sewing machines became a “must-have” household
appliance causing a major growth in sewing machine retail shops. It was natural
that within our Association it was recognised that there were now two main
branches of operation, Industrial and Domestic and our organisation was re-formed
to assist both sections of our industry. Our name changed to the Sewing Machine
Trade Association to acknowledge this development.
Today the majority of our
members are household machine suppliers following the demise of the UK garment
industry in the late 1990’s. We continue
to serve the public, guaranteeing friendly, efficient, knowledgeable attention
and the same time protecting the rights of dealers to cope with the trials
of legislation and the pirating of our industry by internet scavengers.
We
are always interested to hear from legitimately based sewing machine dealers
who would like to join with us to protect our industry and ensure a future
for high street trading. Contact us and we will send you further information
about the Sewing Machine Trade Association.