Move to new owners for Ventile
Japan-based trading company MN Inter-Fashion has acquired the trademark rights to performance cotton fabric brand Ventile.
Ventile is a weather-resistant cotton fabric developed in the 1930s by the Shirley Institute in Manchester. Talbot Weaving in Chorley produces Ventile and the material builds up a track record of being effective in mountaineering and polar expeditions as well as in military applications. In the 1990s, Zurich-based fabric developer Stotz & Co AG became the sole producer of Ventile under a contract manufacturing arrangement with Talbot Weaving. Stotz then acquired the Ventile business in 2017.
MN Inter-Fashion said it would keep in place the existing European production and sales operations of Ventile, retaining the services of brand director, Daniel Odermatt, and sales manager Wolfgang Müller, both of whom worked for Stotz for many years. As a result, Stotz & Co AG’s decades-long connection to Ventile has now ended.
The Japanese group has set up a partnership with Munich-based Weichert Agencies, the textile-focused company that launched Performance Days, to help it run Ventile.
It said it will pursue new product development for Ventile in Japan and other Asian countries and will work with Weichert to promote the Ventile brand worldwide.
Brand director, Daniel Odermatt, said he looked forward to opening “further avenues for innovation and development across Asia” for Ventile.
In 2005, MN Inter-Fashion made a similar move for performance textile brand Pertex, which also originated in the UK. It said it had been able to turn Pertex into “a globally recognised brand” among sports apparel manufacturers and suggested it will aim to do this for Ventile too.
