GB. Headen and Quarmby, Kinky Knickers. Janice Statham, sewer. Headen & Quarmby is a manufacturer of ladies sleepwear and underwear, based in Middleton, and established in 1935. After being featured on the Channel 4 Show, Mary’s Bottom Line, they became renowned for making Mary Portas’s ‘Kinky Knickers,’ stocked in well-known stores such as John Lewis and Marks & Spencer. It has been a turbulent start to 2014 for the company, falling into administration in January, before being brought out and saved by management. Business has now resumed with 12 of the former 33 employees returning to work. The company hope to secure their future by launching their own range ‘Ella&Me’ and investing in the next generation of employees by hosting an academy next door to their premises, training up to twenty students at a time in skills needed in the textile industry. 2013.