Malcolm Fabrics: Twenty Years of Design
Malcolm Fabrics celebrates a marvellous milestone this month!
For Warwick Judkins, the founding director of Malcolm Fabrics, it’s hard to believe how quickly time has flown. Malcolm Fabrics reaches a marvellous milestone this month, celebrating 20 years of excellence in textiles and wallcoverings!
Showroom displays of past collections
It all started when a young Warwick began working for his parents’ Dry Cleaning business. There he learned about different fabrics, their properties and, how to care for them; all the while perfecting a technique for cleaning fur in New Zealand. People came from all over to have their garments groomed!
Like many young men in the 70s, Warwick decided to find a more professional position so he could be supplied a company car to pair with his magnificently long hair and big, bushy beard. He was hired by Robert Malcolm, a fabric and flooring company based in Christchurch, and worked for many years as their sales manager for fabrics. In this role, he realised his passion for textiles was just as substantial as his desire for a new vehicle and he had a successful 20-year stint with the company.
Warwick sporting his long hair & beard in the early 1970s
Over time, Robert Malcolm who was 90% flooring decided they wanted to become 100% flooring, so Warwick took the leap and launched his own business. Malcolm Fabrics was registered just after the new millennium, in August 2000. We had a chat to Warwick about what has happened since then.
Angelique & Warwick at Design Day ‘Carnival’ Designmade Showroom, Christchurch 2018
Malcolm Fabrics turns 20! How does it feel?
Well, it feels much longer than 20 years as I had 20 years with Robert Malcolm, to begin with – lots of ups and downs, but certainly more ups!
Over the years you would have seen some amazing textiles and wallcoverings being released, what is your favourite collection to date?
Casablanca from Harlequin! It was a fantastic collection that took the New Zealand market by storm!
Do you have any set routines in the office?
The heat pump is set for the morning so it’s always warm. Every day we stop for a 10 am coffee, but as far as routines go that’s about it. We’re very relaxed and put a lot of trust in our team, who are wonderful!
Tell us a little bit about your team, who are they, and what do they do?
Our team are a bunch of account managers with many, many years of industry experience between them (and many more with myself included)! I feel lucky to have such a passionate and dedicated crew… plus we all laugh a lot!
We have Andrew who looks after Auckland and the Upper North Island, Holly who takes care of Wellington and the Lower North Island, Angelique who is based in Christchurch and looks after much of the South Island, Adam who is our Warehouse Manager and services Otago [breath] then there’s Lisa who is based here in the office with myself and my lovely wife Carolyn, and Sam who takes care of our social media and marketing.
Your home is beautifully decorated with some gorgeous additions from the brands you supply, do tell us what’s on display!
Well, there’s Fibre Naturelle in the living room, Harlequin in the laundry and hallway, many cushions scattered around the place and we have some Harlequin Silk curtains in the master bedroom which have been there for 15 years with no sign of rotting or fade!
What’s the best part of running Malcolm Fabrics?
The lovely people we deal with and our little family of staff, our team.
You mentioned you love Mondays, what’s so good about this particular day?
A lot of people dread Mondays and going to work, but that doesn’t worry me!
Are there any key moments that stand out over the time you have been running Malcolm Fabrics?
The Christchurch earthquake was, of course, a big event! We were in the Design Resource Centre on Bedford Row at the time. We were handed some hard-hats and had one hour to get as much of our sampling out as we could, the rest was bulldozed. The support was amazing, however, and we ran our showroom out of our living room here at Blighs Rd for a few months. It made winding down in the evenings a little difficult but we got through it!
Malcolm Fabrics showroom space at Designmade, Christchurch
‘Hindustan’ wallcovering from Mind the Gap
Malcolm Fabrics started with three and is now a family of eight, all dedicated to supplying stunning textiles and wallcoverings to the New Zealand design industry.
“Thank you for being there with us for all this time, and here’s to many more years in design!” – The team at Malcolm Fabrics
Words & photography by Samantha Elise
