IGNORE the actors in this scene from the 20th Century Fox film Lincoln: for anyone with a head for business, the real stars are the curtains.
They were supplied to Steven Spielberg's acclaimed biopic by MYB Textiles, a firm of cotton lace weavers based in Ayrshire. The firm has defied the near-destruction of the local textiles industry by specialising in unique Scottish, Madras and Nottingham lace patterns.
The White House "window coverings" and a paisley fabric used on tables are among the authentic mid-19th century-style furnishings sourced from MYB by JR Burrows, a Massachusetts-based importer. Lincoln's 12 Oscar nominations include one for best production design.
Wendy Murray, sales and development manager for the £3 million turnover firm, said: "We supplied our 'Helena' window covering as well as the table covering. All our designs are archive designs which means they are specific to an era. We have also supplied the [HBO series] Boardwalk Empire, and the film of Alice and Wonderland."
With trade mission-support from Scottish Development International and SE's industry group Scottish Textiles, MYB has seen steady growth in recent years under managing director Scott Davidson, developing new markets, including in Russia, Ukraine, Kazhakstan and East Asia, as well as the US.
Murray added: "We have the world's only Nottingham lace design team, and we are very open to innovation and change, designing different fabrics using different techniques and collaborating with [Glasgow design studio] Timorous Beasties on wall coverings.
"Scottish Enterprise's textiles team have supported us not just in testing new markets but in supporting our new website and developing products such as our flame-retardant range."
Founded as Morton Young and Boyland in 1900, the company is one of two survivors of the 400-year-old textile industry in the Irvine Valley, which as recently as the 1990s had a dozen mills.
A Scottish Enterprise spokesman said: "The business has many facets from the unique electronic Jacquard systems applied to their looms to new technology in the production of screen cloth for the theatre and movie industry."
Home furnishings from Scotland did feature in the presidential mansion in Lincoln's day. Carpets "of Glasgow manufacture" from the Templeton factory on Glasgow Green are on a list of expensive European furnishings that in 1861 caused Congress to censure the "frivolous" spending of the president's wife, Mary Todd Lincoln.
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