Textile

The economic development of many Vosgian valleys comes from mining exploitations. A strong workforce and “industrialized” sites facilitated the redevelopment towards new industries, notably textiles, when mines closed down in the eighteenth century. In the nineteenth century, factories settled along rivers and used the power of water. The first plants resembled large farms with many windows. The farmer-workers still lived in neighbouring farms. From 1872, many factories started to appear downstream throughout the Vosgian valleys. They imposed their long one-storey buildings with slate roofs on the landscape. Constantly seeking to settle their workers, the industrials built barracks, and then estates, adjacent to the factories. The barracks could house up to ten families; the estates were accommodations with gardens, lined up in military style. This was the Golden Age of the textile industry. Industrials built factories, canals, chimneys, estates, schools, nurseries, economats, churches. The first textile crises added to the destructions caused by the two world wars. In the Fifties, the textile industry faced a major crisis that called for a complete change. The Vosgian production maintained a top-of-the-range and ennoblement production.

Thirty or so companies are labelled Vosges Terre Textile (Vosgian Textile Land), easily identifiable with the logo “Acteur de Vosges terre textile” (Vosgian Textile Land Player). This label guarantees consumers that more than 75% of the manufacturing process took place in the Vosges Mountains within certified manufactures. Authenticity, origin, respect of a Good Practices Charter and Terre Textile values – equivalent to an AOC for textiles – are therefore guaranteed for the consumer.

• List of certified “Vosges Terre Textile” Companies