Multiyork was a privately owned British furniture

retailer Retail is the sale of goods and Service (economics), services to consumers, in contrast to wholesaling, which is sale to business or institutional customers. A retailer purchases goods in large quantities from manufacturing, manufacturers, dire ...

based in

Thetford Thetford is a market town and civil parish in the Breckland District of Norfolk, England. It is on the A11 road between Norwich and London, just east of Thetford Forest. The civil parish, covering an area of , in 2015 had a population of 24, ...

Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the No ...

. The company employed nearly 550 people in its 50 stores across the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

and its factory and head office in Thetford, where it was a major business. Multiyork was a member of the Worshipful Company of Furniture Makers and carried the Manufacturing Guild Mark. The company entered

administration Administration may refer to: Management of organizations * Management, the act of directing people towards accomplishing a goal ** Administrative Assistant, traditionally known as a Secretary, or also known as an administrative officer, admini ...

on 22 November 2017, followed by its sister company Feather & Black on 27 November.

History

Multiyork was founded in 1978 and initially operated in the Old Mill site in Mellis, a small village in Suffolk. Multiyork was purchased out of receivership by the Wade Furniture Group in February 1995. At that time there were 28 stores. The factory and Head Office have been based at Thetford in Norfolk since 1992 and in 2000 Multiyork expanded its site increasing factory capacity to the production of over 1,000 pieces of furniture a week. Multiyork's 60th store opened in

Lakeside Shopping Centre Lakeside Shopping Centre, is a large out-of-town shopping centre located in West Thurrock, Essex just beyond the eastern boundary of Greater London. It was constructed on the site of a former chalk quarry. The first tenants moved into the compl ...

in Thurrock in October 2008 and was the first to follow a new lifestyle led in-store format.

Administration

Multiyork entered administration on 22 November 2017, with around 550 jobs said to be at risk. An administrator cited a fall in consumer confidence. In December 2017,

DFS Furniture DFS (DFS Furniture plc, stylised as dfs, is a furniture retailer in the United Kingdom, Spain and Ireland specialising in sofas and soft furnishings. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange. History Northern Upholstery In 1969, aged 22, G ...

(DFS) reached an agreement to purchase the eight store leases, product designs, marketing databases and the Multiyork brand for £1.2 million. The deal also specified that as of 18 February, administrators will stop using the Multiyork brand. Six of the stores will reopen under the Sofa Workshop brand; the remaining two will open as branches of DFS.

Craftsmanship

All Multiyork sofas were made at its Thetford factory. The company employed a team of 60

seamstress A dressmaker, also known as a seamstress, is a person who makes custom clothing for women, such as dresses, blouses, and evening gowns. Dressmakers were historically known as mantua-makers, and are also known as a modiste or fabrician. Not ...

es who stitched the

upholstery Upholstery is the work of providing furniture, especially seats, with padding, springs, webbing, and fabric or leather covers. The word also refers to the materials used to upholster something. ''Upholstery'' comes from the Middle English w ...

fabrics. Multiyork operated a

sewing Sewing is the craft of fastening or attaching objects using stitches made with a sewing needle and thread. Sewing is one of the oldest of the textile arts, arising in the Paleolithic era. Before the invention of spinning yarn or weaving fab ...

apprenticeship school to ensure that these skills were passed down from one generation to the next and to preserve the craft within the local region. Not only did Multiyork use their own

fabrics Textile is an umbrella term that includes various fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, filaments, threads, different fabric types, etc. At first, the word "textiles" only referred to woven fabrics. However, weaving is not the ...

but also offered designer fabrics such as Mulberry,

Designers Guild Designers Guild is an international home and lifestyle company with a flagship store and showrooms on Kings Road and Marylebone High Street in London, as well as offices in London, Paris, and Munich. Designers Guild designs and wholesales furni ...

, Arthur Sanderson, Romo and Jane Churchill.

The factory store

Multiyork's

factory outlet An outlet store, factory outlet or factory shop is a brick and mortar or online store in which manufacturers sell their stock directly to the public. Traditionally, a factory outlet was a store attached to a factory or warehouse, sometimes allowin ...

was run out of its original site in Mellis. The store had over dedicated to clearance stock, including ex display and end of line stock, as well as cancelled customer orders and customer returns.

Fundraising

In 2009 Multiyork raised £25,000 for BBC Children in Need. The company's in-house design team created six limited edition Pudsey sofas, five of which toured its stores and travelled a total of between them to raise funds. The sofas, which incorporated Pudsey Bear and the ‘We’re Supporting BBC Children in Need’ banner, were also featured on

BBC One BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, ...

on the appeal night programme and were auctioned off through the BBC's Children in Need

eBay eBay Inc. ( ) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that facilitates consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer sales through its website. eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in 1995 and became ...

auction to raise further cash.

References

External links

*{{official website, https://www.multiyork.co.uk/
Modern FurnitureOak Furniture House
Thetford Companies based in Norfolk Furniture retailers of the United Kingdom Retail companies established in 1978 Retail companies disestablished in 2017 Companies that have entered administration in the United Kingdom