The county's textiles industry is famous thanks to names like Nathaniel Corah & Sons, Cherub, Symington's and Pick's. They were once kings of British manufacturing but were forced to close after retailers moved their manufacturing overseas in the 1970s and 80s.
But now the demand is back for British brands made by British people, and Leicestershire is set to see a renaissance.
Earlier this year, the Leicester and Leicestershire Enterprise Partnership published a document that said 88 per cent of employers expect their businesses to grow in the next three years, leading to new jobs.
It also said the textile manufacturing industry in the LLEP area is the second largest employment area in the UK, with around 9,480 people in jobs. There are about 1,480 textile manufacturing firms in the area.
Sue Tilley, economic strategy manager at the LLEP, said: "Leicestershire's textile scene is seeing a huge renaissance. It's incredibly exciting."
Thanks to a rise in 'fast fashion' – where catwalk trends quickly move from the runways to the high street to keep up with demand – and online retail, the county's textile industry is seeing an increase in demand.
Sue said: "Businesses here will run off 500 pieces as opposed to 50,000.
"If you went to China, it wouldn't pay you to do 500 pieces there because you have to fly them in.
"People and retailers expect to get things quickly.
"It's very difficult in this country to expect what is going to be required, so companies need to be nimble to produce things quickly when the season changes. You can't do that overseas."
Even if machinery is brought in to replace workers, there are still job opportunities because people are needed to programme the machines and work with them.
Sue said: "The fashion industry enables a lot of activities.
"These include manufacturing the garment, marketing it, programming websites to sell it, promotion and point of sale in stores.
"Then there are soft furnishings as well, like Dunelm, who are part of the textile market, and we've got big retailers here too. Next, for example, is a massive company and employs a lot of people.
"Then you have the supply chains who deal with things like compliance with ethical manufacturing.
"There are a lot of opportunities that are being driven by the internet and this is great for young designers who are coming out of university and launching their own brands."
A great example of a young designer making her mark in the industry is Tayla-Blue Mitchell-Jarvis, founder of HOT!MESS clothing in Hinckley, which was launched in 2013.
HOT!MESS processes around 10,000 orders a week, which can increase depending on sale days and one-offs like Black Friday.
She employs 13 people but is looking to relocate at the end of the year and take on a further five to 10 staff.
Tayla said: "Leicester has some great factories. We have extremely close relationships with a couple of factories in Leicester.
"We've grown together from the bottom, where we were making 20 to 50 pieces per style, to now where we're making 4 to 5,000 of each piece we sell online.
"We sold them our dream when we began, pushed them to help us out and promised it would pay off, and it did.
"Many factories won't consider working with start-up brands, so we're forever thankful to them."
In the future, the LLEP aims to create an enterprise space, bringing together all of the existing textile companies in Leicestershire – from retailers to manufacturers – with the educational establishments to strengthen relations between the two.
It has begun early steps towards that already by forging a relationship with Kate Hills, founder and editor of Make It British.
"It will take place at the Vijay Patel Building, home to the faculty of Art, Design and Humanities at De Montfort University, on October 28.
"What we have here is lots of clusters of activity. But what want is to create a central hub where we can combine grassroots level skills with students, graduates and research and development.
"What we need though is the funds to enable it to come together, deliver the skills and training and showcase the textiles activity we have here."
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