About Us

Chieftain is one of Europe’s leading providers of performance vinyl fabrics.

Our Story

1958

Sean Lemass, Minister for Industry and Commerce, walks through a guard of honour at the opening of the original Trimproof manufacturing plant, September 4th, 1958.
1974

Ground breaking at the time, but standard practice today, colour matching by computer instead of by eye was pioneered here in the seventies.
1982

Peter Campbell, still with us after over 30 years, showing how it’s done on the original coating line.
1986

The first print proof of the original Chieftain pattern card from 1986-complete with genuine Irish chieftain. Probably.
1992

Donal Kinsella, our chairman, welcoming then Prime Minister, Albert Reynolds to the plant on 3rd July 1992, when we originally achieved ISO 9002 certification.
2000

This range was Chieftain’s first foray into the healthcare market with one of the first antimicrobial vinyl fabrics. Made using Irgagard from Ciba/Novartis, this range was a ground-breaker at the time. Many of these products are still in demand today from hospitals and healthcare facilities worldwide, due to our tried and trusted performance.
2012

Chieftain today. A customer-oriented enterprise designing and delivering performance fabric solutions for the most discerning clients. Chieftain today has over 150 products in stock and supplies specialist customers from Brazil to Singapore, and from Canada to South Africa.

For over 60 years we have specialised in the design and production of high-quality performance fabric and contract upholstery. With our unique mix of specialist expertise, innovative R&D and advanced materials, we produce an inherently better fabric. Our fabric is guaranteed to be technically capable, consistent, recyclable, easy to work with and great looking.

We pride ourselves on providing outstanding customer service with the care and attention you’d expect from an established, family-run business. We provide in-depth expertise and genuine advice; we help you make the right choice and we work hard to make all aspects of buying and using our performance fabric as simple and easy as possible.

We ensure a quick service, quick turnaround and quick delivery and give our customers expert guidance on fabric treatment and cleaning. You can buy direct or through a distributor, either way you’ll get to talk to us, the experts.

Research and Development

Driving innovation in performance fabric.

We specialise 100% in the design and manufacture of performance fabric and contract upholstery for seating, and have continually invested, throughout our history, to develop technically superior products. As part of this, we have a full time Plastics Technologist to constantly improve our product ranges. On an ongoing basis, we improve our most traditional and long-standing products to ensure that they pass new EU regulations, REACH directives and customer-required improvements in the areas of microbial resistance (C. Diff, NDM-1), fire retardancy (Crib 7, M1) and usability. Our top quality materials and uncompromising manufacturing standards produce an inherently better product.

In addition, new ingredients or production processes are being developed in the industry (e.g Crib 5 mattress covering) and Chieftain are always trying to adopt these improvements into our production processes and product range portfolio.

Our innovative production minimises environmental impact. 25% of raw material is from recycled content and we produce a fabric that is 90% recyclable.

Trust over 60 Years of Innovation, Expertise & Service.