Prince of Wales investiture chair

Here's my dog Lewis on a Prince of Wales investiture chair that I reupholstered for a customer. For the monarchists among you it may seem inappropriate to have a dog on the chair but unlike the Prince the dog is actually Welsh, so some might say he is well qualified to sit on it...

Designed by Lord Snowdon and used by royals and other notable attendees of The Prince Wales’s 1969 investiture ceremony at Caernarfon Castle, the investiture chair was manufactured by Remploy and was made of a vermillion stained plywood and supposedly covered in Welsh wool. This is why the customer brought it to me hoping I could source more Welsh wool for it.

To try to trace the original fabric I contacted lots of Welsh mills and other people in the know but drew a blank, no-one had any idea who produced the wool fabric. When I finally got the chair I realised it wasn't covered in wool at all, but a cotton/polyester mix with textured weave. I could find nothing suitable produced in Wales but found an ok match from Scottish manufacturer Wemyss

**UPDATE - JAN 2016 - Lots of people have contacted me since asking if I can source a fabric for these chairs so I got in touch with CADW and various other organisations including St.Fagan's and still no joy. If anyone does have a source please let me know. Until then I'm recommending Danish manufacturer Kvadrat and their Tonus fabric. It's expensive at over £100 per metre (min order 1m) but if you can bring your chair to me for reupholstery I can supply this about half price because it only needs half a metre. Hope this helps. Mick.

***UPDATE - APRIL 2016 - I now have the original fabric in stock and can supply it - see this blog post for details 

So if you have one of these and it needs reupholstering, it looks like I'm your man.

Just don't tell Charles about the dog.