Textile industry

From the 18th century onward, the French Vosges developed into a centre of the wool, linen, and cotton industries. Mountain streams powered watermills and provided the much-needed water for washing, dyeing, and bleaching fabrics.

Tucked away in the northern French town of Croix stands a bold statement in brick, steel, and marble: Villa Cavrois. This striking modernist mansion, completed in 1932, was the brainchild of famed architect Robert Mallet-Stevens.

Even though the curtain fell on the United Textile Mills (Verenigde Textielfabrieken or Vetex) in Kortrijk over 30 years ago, the company name still graces the streetscape

A concrete water tower still testifies to the ultimate attempt by a group of West Flanders flax companies to secure sufficient water to sustain flax production.

At the end of the 19th century, the Cotonnière du Touquet settled in the northern French textile town of Tourcoing.

A century ago, in 1925, the Guenot & Duprez cotton mill appeared on the scene in the French textile town of Tourcoing.

At barely 25, Jules de Hemptinne stood at the cradle of a cotton spinning and weaving mill on the Kolveniersgang.

A monument erected at the end of the twentieth century to pay tribute to the city's wool industry proves that Verviers was once the focal point of the Belgian wool industry.

Verviers, the Belgian capital of the wool industry, had dozens of spinning mills, weaving mills, bleaching mills, cloth manufacturers and so-called conditioning buildings, the first stop for the wool delivered to the city.

The former Delhaize brush factory is one of Bruges' most striking and best-preserved industrial heritage sites.