Sir Nicholas Sekers

Miki Sekers had an amazing flair, energy and enthusiasm for design and fabrics. The company was very forward thinking and was the first to launch flame retardant fabrics in the UK. The mill in Whitehaven and the offices in Sloane Square were amazingly designed spaces that surrounded everyone in fabrics and pieces of art for inspiration. He was awarded a knighthood in 1965, and in 1967 there followed a Royal Warrant of Appointment as suppliers of furnishing fabric to Her Majesty the Queen.

Sir Nicholas Sekers, who died on holiday in Yugoslavia on 23 June, 1972, combined in a remarkable degree the qualities of designer, businessman, patron of the arts and a married man with three children. He was a man of immense energy, a person who loved working with other passionate creative people to create the exceptional.

Miki Sekers came to Britain from Hungary in 1937. He had been trained in textile technology in Krefeld in Germany and had already had experience of textile manufacture at the family's silk mills in Budapest.

In Britain, he set up West Cumberland Silk Mills in a depressed non-textile area at Whitehaven. During the war the factory was engaged in producing parachute fabric, but afterwards Miki Sekers set out to establish a reputation for fashion fabrics for the dress trade, using all his exceptional flair for design and colour combined with equally exceptional energy and skill in marketing. All these qualities might still have been inadequate had they not been backed by an excellent understanding of technology which enabled him to exploit the potential of natural and man-made fibres as well as modern methods of manufacture. In this respect he had inspired support from his cousin and partner, Tomi de Gara.

Having established his name in the fashion markets of the world, he did the impossible and sold British fabrics to the French couture houses. Christian Dior used them for the first time in 1947.and other couturiers in Paris and Italy followed. Amongst the great fashion houses supplied by Sekers were Edward Molyneux and Bianca Mosca in London and Christian Dior, Pierre Cardin and Givenchy in Paris. He persuaded artists such as Cecil Beaton, Oliver Messel and Graham Sutherland to design his brocades. At the same time they were making luxury-look dress materials within the purchasing power of most home dressmakers.

They established West Cumberland Silk Mills as a thriving public company, Miki Sekers next saw an opening in the world of furnishing fabrics. The same flair, energy and enthusiasm were put to work and, in 1962, his first full range was awarded the Duke of Edinburgh's Prize for Elegant Design. Again his aim was to give the biggest choice in the widest price range – This range consisted of about 100 qualities with more than two thousand colours all of which were in stock. These fabrics were an immediate success.

In 1964 they moved into a glittering glass showroom in Sloane Street designed by Brett and Pollen. To get away from the nostalgic atmosphere of the past and to create a background for its fabrics in keeping with the movement of contemporary art Sekers fabrics exchanged its premises in Bruton Street for a large modern building in Sloane Street, London W1. The new showrooms were designed by Dennis Lennon, using natural materials and showing them as nearly as possible in their original form. Kenneth Partridge, who was responsible for the presentation and display, arranged the range of fabrics in as simple a manner as possible so that a customer looking for a particular fabric or colour is able to find it quickly. On the walls of the ground and lower ground floors, all fabrics which are in stock are shown by qualities, each quality being illustrated in its complete colour range. In front of the main window, all the colours of the most important fabrics are displayed in spectromatic order, illustration right, and there is a display stand in the centre where large lengths of the fabrics are shown. Smaller stands show all stock qualities in all the colours in which they occur, and a set of 16 books offers a further comprehensive illustration of the full range. Architects for the building Brett and Pollen; showrooms Dennis Lennon; presentation Kenneth Partridge.

Concurrently, with all this activity and success in design and business, Miki Sekers had been making an equal, if not greater, contribution in the world of music. At Whitehaven, he set up the Rosehill Arts Trust, and built the little Rosehill theatre, in the garden of his house. The interior was designed by Oliver Messel and described at the time as a “rose red, silk lined jewellery box.” He was a trustee of Glyndebourne, chairman of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, a member of Council of the Shakespeare Theatre Trust and of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. He was an extremely lively and charming person with a great sense of humour. His accent added to his appeal and he could be a great success as a speaker, particularly after dinner.

When he was employing people he was looking for people with not only obvious design talents or appreciation of the nature of a business that is half art, half trade, but people whose attitude to business is shaped by general curiosity about life and genuine intellectural appetite, especially for the arts. “If anyone comes to me for an interview I ask him how many languages he speaks and if he is interested in painting, or music or books. If he’s not, then he’s not for us.” He believed that all businessmen if they are to be successful need inspiration. And one of the many outside sources of inspiration is art. Through art he believed people find fresh inspiration for themselves and the people who work under them. As it is art which brings beauty into people’s lives.

December 15th 1970 Miki retired on his 70th Birthday.

Sir Nicholas Sekers was a member of the Council of Industrial Design from 1966 to 1971. He received the MBE in 1955 and was knighted ten years later. After a very serious illness for three years he had a major heart operation and made a good recovery, but he did not return to the business he had created. Instead, he set up a design consultancy and had recently applied his old flair to new ranges for the furnishing firm Listers of Bradford.