Downtown Abbey sends 'stiff collar' sales soaring

The world's last remaining starched collar laundry has been now doing a booming trade in a British seaside town thanks to period TV dramas such as Downton Abbey.

The Barker Group in Bournemouth, Dorset, has been the only one remaining on in the business on the planet, the Daily Express reported.

The company has been now in such high demand that it was having to produce 80,000 stiff collars a year, with clients all over the world including royalty, the television, film and theatre industry, the judiciary and the military.

The firm has produced collars for movie blockbusters including Sherlock Holmes and Titanic and for TV series like Downton Abbey and Poirot. Crime drama series Peaky Blinders, which is currently airing on BBC 2, was also supplied by the Barker Group.

The idea behind the 1800s and early 1900s was that well-dressed gents could wear the same shirt for a week, just changing the collar, without the expense of washing the whole shirt.

The collar would start as a piece of floppy cotton and go through 60 different stages to become the finished product, with each stage being equally crucial.