Magda — Oldham’s queen of couture

Magdalene Rubel pictured last year

IN these days of throwaway fashion, it is hard to imagine how Oldham once led the way in couture quality, knitted suits and dresses sold all over the world.

But the Madeleine Russell brand was once a byword for clothes costing hundreds of pounds, all produced in an Oldham mill.

The woman who created Madeleine Russell, a Hungarian refugee who set up her first production line in her attic, died recently.

Janice Barker found out more about the colourful life of Magdalene Rubel.

WHEN Madeleine Russell’s Exquisite Knitwear and Fashion Fabrics companies moved to the Napier Mill in Oldham in 1964, its customers were global.

Expensive knitting machinery was installed to double the workforce to 100 and increase production by 150 per cent.

The clothes were worn by top families in Britain, Europe and America.

By the 1980s it had closed, as mass production from countries like China squeezed the market. The mill, off Chadderton Way, was demolished in 1996.

Now Magdalene Rubel, the firm’s founder, is remembered only in the archives of the Gallery of Costume at Platt Hall in Manchester, to which she donated all her catalogues, and by her family, who have been sorting out her papers and photographs following her death, aged 92.

The woman who created Madeleine Russell had fled Vienna when she was 22, lived as a refugee in England and supported her family by making clothes with a hand-operated knitting machine in the attic of her Salford home.

She was born in 1916 in Budapest, Hungary, but was sent to Vienna to study design, with the idea of returning to the family’s textile firm.

But the annexation of Austria by Hitler in 1938 ended those dreams.

By then she was married to Leo Rubel, and they couple were tipped off that they should leave Vienna.

They lived in a refugee hostel in Hull, but Leo was interned as an enemy alien for six months in Liverpool. Magdalene stayed in Hull, where her daughter Susan was born.

By the end of the war the couple also had a son, Steven, and had moved to a semi in Broughton Park, Salford. The Red Cross traced Madeleine’s parents and sister, Edith, in 1946, and they travelled to England. Living with her extended family made Magdalene decide to put her design skills to use.

Susan, a retired GP now living in Israel, recalled: “She got her first hand-operated knitting machine, set it up in the attic, and started making sweaters for family and friends.

“As time went on she rented premises in Oldham, first at Mumps and later she took two floors in the Napier Mill.

“She never mass produced, she made to order, and she had agents covering the country.

“Leo was the manager and they were a very hard working couple. At some point they had at least 100 employees.

“I was a frequent visitor to the Napier Mill and she had a wonderful relationship with her staff.

“She designed a number of styles for each spring and autumn collection and each was made to order. People would also come for made-to-measure clothes.”

Two of her great supporters were local actress Dora Bryan and her mother. And when “Coronation Street” star Violet Carson, who played Ena Sharples, visited Australia in 1968 she was pictured in Madeleine Russell Exquisite Knitwear.

Magdalene, who could charge £120 for a coat in 1979, had her merino wool dyed to order, and travelled to Europe and America for inspiration.

She also worked with ICI when the company created the revolutionary crimplene polyester yarn in the 1970s.

Her son, Steven, who worked as her agent, recalls: “It was a mass-produced fabric for cheap ladies’ garments, but ICI wanted to see if it could be used for haute couture, or very expensive cocktail dresses.

“They commissioned my mother to make garments which were seen all over the world and featured in international Vogue.”

To produce her own knitwear, Steven recalled how his mother travelled to the great Pret-a-Porter fashion shows and rubbed shoulders with designers from Balmain, Dior and Chanel, then followed the trends with her own garments.

“They were very heavy gauge, double jersey knits and well made,” he said.

But in 1981, when his mother was 65 and father 69, the business closed.

Market

Steven, who later ran Napier Mill as a business centre, said: “She was disappointed but could never find designers who could create two full collections a year and it ended with mother doing 80 or 90 per cent of the catalogue. It was a unique product.

“Then the Chinese came along with mass production and big volumes, and it was a changing market.”

His parents did pass on their entrepreneurial skills to him, he revealed: “I would go to the mill when I was five and knit red and white Manchester United scarves.

“When my mother found out she went ballistic — I was using her best merino wool and I was charging my mates two and sixpence, but the wool was worth £10.

“What was worse, I had to go and buy them back, unwind them and put them back on the cones to be used again.”

l Do you have any memories of Madeleine Russell and Magda Rubel? Contact janbarker@oldham-chronicle.co.uk.