Jules Haines on saving beautiful textiles destined for landfill

Meet Jules Haines, an award-winning textiles entrepreneur with a mission to reduce waste in the interiors industry

Jules Haines’s colourful Victorian townhouse in Tunbridge Wells is featured in the October/November 2024 issue of Reclaim (available in print or digital), where she describes her interior style as ‘heritage contemporary with personality and craft’.

Her home is also a beautiful testament to her business, Haines – a pioneering platform for the resale of surplus fabric from high-end designers – where textiles bring colour and pattern to curtains, cushions and upholstery in the living room, as well as headboards and canopies in the bedrooms.

How did it all begin?

I’ve always been passionate about textiles and sewing was my hobby growing up. After starting a career in marketing, I landed my dream job working for a new textile designer in 2011 – here I learnt everything I needed to know about how to build a business. I also discovered first-hand how much waste there was in the industry, notably how much perfectly good leftover textiles came from the manufacturing and making process of soft furnishings and printing fabric.

The idea to start a business came after a chance meeting in a pop-up shop in Tunbridge Wells, when I discovered a soft-furnishings business owner selling off a wide range of high-end fabric remnants. It made me think that there should be someone specifically offering a resale service. Working for a textile brand I’d experienced the frustrations of having leftover designs and not having a beautiful platform to represent them. This spurred me on to contact the owner from the pop-up shop and arrange a meeting. He became my first supplier!

How does Haines work?

Our mission is to help the interiors industry reduce waste and negative impact on the environment; we provide a solution to the environmental challenges facing the interiors industry through our resale platform and eco-designer partnerships.

The main crux of Haines is to resell leftover or unwanted fabrics and homeware created by other brands. So in our Haines Collection edit you’ll find limited-run designs from the likes of Molly Mahon, Christopher Farr and Colefax & Fowler. We make a small amount of product from fabric remnants that come in and cannot be rehomed, our most popular products being cushions. Pieces are made locally and the backs are a matching plain to allow the design to go further and to keep the price accessible.

In our Haines Curates edit we’ve identified the most eco-conscious textile and homeware brands from which you can buy brand-new fabrics, rugs and cushions. The idea is that you know these have been made as responsibly as possible and can buy new without adding to the fast-interiors problem.

Can you explain more about Haines Curates?

Our edit of curated textiles includes works from Beki Bright, The Campbell Collection, Inchyra, Mahala Textiles, Nichola Taylorson and Sophia Frances, amongst many others. From upcycled embroidery and the use of natural vegetable dyes to ethically sourced biodegradable materials, made-to-order production and low-water-use digital printing, each brand is bringing something new to the table. We are constantly sharing ideas on how we as an industry can hope to produce textiles more sustainably. By repurposing waste fabrics and furnishings and making them easily available online, we’ve grown a dedicated audience committed to being environmentally responsible when decorating their homes.

Where do you sell your products?

We sell all our products on our website and can claim to have salvaged over 33,468 metres of fabric since 2020. We have a drop every Monday night where we add 40 to 50 new products; these are usually small volumes and once they’re gone, they’re gone! I also do a preview on Instagram ahead of the drop.