The House of Harella

Working in 'new' media, it's rather handy to be living in an area with a high number of digital agencies. Even though I work in the wasteland of Canary Wharf, meetings with suppliers often take me back to Clerkenwell. And, of course, I always try to schedule those encounters last thing in the afternoon - so it's just a short stroll home.

Yesterday took me to an agency based in Harella House on Goswell Road, a building which used to be a clothing factory. The lovely folks at website design and usability agency Flow Interactive have done a great job of turning their offices into a light, bright open-plan working space, replete with user testing laboratories, and the obligatory agency table football. Their building's former history hasn't been neglected either. Proudly occupying a space on the wall is a 1950s pink suit bought on E-bay, nicely framed, made by the former occupier of the building: Harella.

The name Harella has slipped into obscurity, but it was once a well-known British clothing manufacturer. A little Google searching surfaced a few facts. The company was founded in 1919 by tailor's apprentice Lew Harris, and grew to have operations in Halifax and Birkenhead as well as London.

It developed into the second largest exporter in the UK fashion industry, with its own distinctive house style. In 1963, the company was taken over by the enormous Selincourt Group in a deal said to be worth more than £3 million. Then in 1979, Harella was taken over by the Barnsley-based firm S. R. Gent & Company Ltd, and seems to have fallen into obscurity, as cheap high-street fashion took over.

The fact that almost no one under 40 has now heard of Harella says a lot about the toughness of industry as we enter what the BBC is still calling 'the economic downturn' but will shortly be rebranded as 'recession'.

For Harella, read Viyella and numerous other once-strong British household names destined to fall into obscurity.