2023-07-15 16:17:33
At the Lemahieu factory in Saint-André-lez-Lille, it all starts in the offices, with creation. It’s here that menstrual panties are imagined, under the brand Achel. It has been more than ten years since Edith Lemahieu, the daughter of the company’s founder, imagined the first models.
The next step is prototyping. We choose the material, the shape and the color of the panties. The prototypists know how to use all the machines, fourteen in number in the workshop. Lucie Bacquart cuts, sews and assembles the finished product to see the result. ” To make panties, it’s a superposition of layers: organic cotton, bamboo fiber, non-traversable and once more organic cotton », Details the prototypist. When the product is validated, manufacturing is launched on a large scale.
Lucie Bacquart (left) is one of Lemahieu’s three prototypists.
It starts with knitting. Using knitting looms with hundreds of needles, yarn on a spool is transformed into fabric. ” We seek to make the garment as clean as possible, in particular by using organic cotton », says Sabine Heuls, marketing and communication manager.
In front of a knitting machine, where the bobbin yarn becomes fabric.
Band saw cutting
The dyeing of the fabric is the only step that is not done in Saint-André. The fabric is sent to Roanne (Loire). Once dyed, the fabric goes to the stage of the cup. For large pieces (t-shirts), the quilting table is used. But for menstrual panties, we turn to the bandsaw. ” With this machine, I cut fourteen bamboo fiber panty bottoms at the same time “, explains Colette Bouthors, cutting operator, handling the machine with chainmail gloves.
Using a band saw, Colette Bouthors, cutting operator, cuts the panty bottoms according to a pattern.
Cut out, the panties go the making : this is where it is assembled, the elastic sewn, the lace added. This workshop, made up of 70 seamstresses, including two dressmakers, has more than 100 machines of 25 different kinds. A panty therefore passes from hand to hand, because each seamstress performs one and the same task. Then direction quality control : we check the measurements, the finish… Pascale, once she has validated the panties, sticks a label on it where her first name is written.
Of the 118 employees of the Lemahieu company, seventy work in the clothing workshop.
Labeled and packaged, panties are ready to ship.Achel menstrual panties, in three models and three colors, are sold in organic stores or on the Lemahieu website.
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