Historical information
Part of a collection of books, fabric samples and documents from the working life of Ray Smith.
Ray began his career at the age of 15, working at the Albion Woollen Mills in Geelong in 1953.
Over the next five decades, Ray furthered his education in textile design, weaving design, knitting and later computer aided design, including qualifications from Gordon Textile College, City and Guilds of London Institute, The Textile Institute, Melbourne Institute of Textiles and Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT).
After ten years at Albion Woollen Mills, Ray went on to hold fabric design positions at Prestige Fabrics and Yarra Falls, working up to management roles in both the Weaving and Fabric Design Divisions, and then as Product Development Manager at Yarra Falls until 2000.
Ray shares some career highlights below:
In 1977 and 1978 I won the Wool Corporation’s Celsius 30 Awards as Yarra Falls Designer. (See photos attached.) These awards came with study trips to the major Textile Centres and Trade Fairs around the world. This was proven to be beneficial and Yarra Falls sent me overseas every year for the next 22 years.
On stopovers in Hong Kong we appointed an agent and took part in Textile Trade Fairs at Interstoff Asia and exhibited designs in 1991, 92, 93, 94.
I created a pattern book for a chain of shops called “Kwun KeeTailors” for their customers to select our fabrics to be made up into suits for the tourists.
I also had several trips to New York to try to export to America with some success.
I was commissioned by the Melbourne College of Textiles to write a Woven Textile Design Course to be taught under the outreach program.
This was eventually translated into Spanish to be used by developing textile industries in South America.
Physical description
Folded map attached inside a card folder, featuring a map of Scotland with tartan design and red and black text on the cover.
Inscriptions & markings
Front [printed]: BARTHOLOMEW / the tartan map / with list of septs of the clans
