The ultimate guide to British knitwear brands – all made in the UK
UK-made knitwear is world-renowned. It’s no wonder – the mechanical knitting machine was invented in England and the oldest operating factory in the world is owned by a knitwear manufacturer – John Smedley.
When it comes to quality, British knitwear can’t be beaten. Whether it’s menswear, womenswear or childrenswear; hand or machine knitted; cashmere, wool or cotton; heritage brand or start-up; there’s a British knit for everyone.
If you’re looking for the best UK-made knitwear brands, you’ll love our ultimate list.
Britannical
Treat your child to something they can treasure forever with a personalized, pure cashmere sweater from Britannical. Hand made in Britain using the very highest grade cashmere yarn available, these are a delight to wear and behold.
The Cotton London
Designed and knitted in Scotland from the finest quality wool and cotton, the Cotton knitwear collection offers style in an array of seasonal colours and luxurious soft blends. Their super-soft knitwear collection is a perfect combination of comfort and style.
Paul James Knitwear
Since 1976, Paul James Knitwear has focused on the art of producing beautifully handcrafted knitwear for prestigious brands and influential boutiques. Using yarns from all over the world, they knit stylish, functional garments that are made to last.
Waring Brooke
British knitwear designer Samantha Brooke, founder of the luxury ‘Waring Brooke’ takes a multi-pronged approach to reducing fashion waste with a vision of the future firmly in mind for creating her womenswear, menswear and personalised accessories.
As seen in Vogue and billed as one to watch in the fashion industry, talented Samantha creates luxury knitwear with ethically sourced biodegradable materials designed for those who share their love of the outdoors and who have an interest in protecting the British countryside.
Mars Knitwear
A Leicester based knitwear manufacturer that has been producing the finest quality knitwear since 1994. All of Mars Knitwear’s products are designed, manufactured, and carefully inspected in-house by their team of experts.
The Welsh Girl
Founded by Julie Leonard in 2015 on returning to her Welsh roots after 25 years in the fashion and photographic industry in London. With a passion for wool and a vision to re-ignite and celebrate the heritage textiles of Wales, The Welsh Girl works with the cloth in a unique and contemporary way.
Glenbrae
Known for producing the finest British knitwear. Glenbrae garments are a unique blend of style and substance, and the technology that goes into crafting each item of knitwear is truly revolutionary.
They select only the best wool and fibres, apply unsurpassed knowledge, skill and craft, and use time-honoured techniques. The result is a product that is not only luxurious but also practical and beautifully hard-wearing.
Harley of Scotland
Synonymous with high quality Scottish knitwear, Harley of Scotland is recognised worldwide for excellence and forward thinking knit technology. Using the highest quality natural yarns and ethical Scottish production – Harley of Scotland offers a quality standard and meticulous attention to detail that is unsurpassed.
Oubas Knitwear
Creating beautiful and timeless knitted pieces from natural fibres. Oubas values made in Britain; drawing on the rich history that surrounds them to bring contemporary products with high end craftsmanship.
Ally Bee
Making beautiful sustainable knitwear, adopting a ‘cradle to cradle’ commitment to fashion. Ally Bee seeks out natural fibres with care for the land and animal welfare and adopt the cleanest processing and dying.
Genevieve Sweeney
Made exclusively in the UK, Genevieve Sweeney is writing a new chapter for the knitwear industry, marrying contemporary design with exceptional hand finishes. Indebted to the time-honoured techniques of artisan makers, the brand has reimagined the possibilities of knitwear.
Celtic & Co.
A luxury British brand based in Cornwall, Celtic & Co offers a range of UK-made knitwear made exclusively from the finest, all-natural fibres, predominantly produced in the UK.
Glencroft
Richard Sexton & Co is a family-run British clothing company based in Clapham, in the heart of the Yorkshire Dales. Since 1987 they have been supplying wholesale with their quality ‘Glencroft’ brand which includes some beautiful UK-made knitwear pieces.
Foxology
Born out of its founder, Dawn Foxall’s passion for knitwear, heritage and quality, coupled with a desire to communicate the urgent need to slow fashion down. Foxology was launched as a proactive brand – part of the wave of brands supporting slow fashion.
This is why Foxology does not do seasons. They add to the range what they believe their customers want and need and sell through those styles and colours that become less popular.
Jennifer Kent
Founded in Glasgow by designer Jennifer Kent, the studio specialises in creating modern UK-made knitwear.
The collections are thoughtfully curated and reflect Jennifer’s minimal aesthetic and impeccable attention to detail. The brand is not driven by seasonal trends but instead places a strong focus on ensuring its beautifully made products are timeless and can be enjoyed and appreciated year after year.
Valentina Karellas
Welcome to Valentina Karellas, where every piece of knitwear is one-of-a-kind. That’s because they use surplus yarn from large factories that would otherwise have gone to waste. The result: each one is a lifelong-lasting, entirely unique London original. They’re continuing London’s rich heritage of quality making.
Eribé Knitwear
An award-winning design house and manufacturer based in Melrose, Scotland. Established in 1986, Eribé are world-famous for putting an innovative spin on traditional Scottish knitwear.
Jelena Faergemann
A sustainable fashion brand founded by fashion designer Jelena Faergemann. Made with consideration and care for the environment; from the materials they use, to waste production and only using environmentally friendly packaging.
All items are made in the United Kingdom with limited stock availability and a pre-order option is possible with various colour combinations to suit your choice. Special orders on request are also available to accomplish your wish for a knitted outfit.
British Alpaca Fashion Company
The only alpaca breeder with a design studio and production facility directly on their farm in the whole of the UK. The British Alpaca Fashion Company produce high-end knitwear from their own alpaca fleece in the hills of Exmoor.
Justine Tabak
Made entirely in the UK, Justine Tabak sources fine British fabrics where possible. They produce their garments with small local manufacturers where they work together to create beautiful products. Quality and care are utmost.
John Smedley
Established in 1784, John Smedley are the oldest manufacturing factory in the world, crafting beautiful, high quality garments that are designed to last, made in Britain and distributed the world over.
Johnstons of Elgin
Founded in 1797, the Johnstons knitting mill in Hawick, has a team of highly skilled designers and craftspeople working together to create their wonderful knitwear.
Peregrine
An English Heritage clothing brand with British Heritage Merino wool jumpers and cardigans.
Bonus entry!
British Christmas Jumpers
At Make it British we love a Christmas Jumper and British Christmas Jumpers offer a huge range of designs, all made in the UK of course!
There is no doubt that English knitwear is the best in the world.
Why English and not British. We do make very good knitwear in Scotland and i’m sure Ireland and Wales do too
Very true, I am trying to find jumper mate by White of Scotland.
Absolutely 🙂 uniqueness is irreplaceable
Where can you buy Ross Bar in London?
You can but his products here > https://www.ross-barr.com/
British manufacturers please contact me on leila@kingfox.co.uk if after looking at my Instagram/facebook @kingfoxmenswear you think you’d fit in.
Thanks so much.
Good selection of knitwear companies, nice to see traditional styles represented as well as new designs.
We would love to buy some sweaters here but we are in the USA and do not know what the customs duty would be. Any advice? Thanks
Do any of these manufacture cardigans for men with detail like the stripe around the Vneck as per gucci designs and similar. I want to support ethical manufacture but struggle to find non solid colour boring garments from many of these manufacturers
If you can, please let me know of British knitwear which is NOT woolen, as my daughter is quite allergic to all wools. Thanks,
Danielle J.
Love this and great info for a recent graduate like myself
Good to see British Companies still producing quality items.
Do you have any idea of what’s going on with Leith Clothing? Website down, Instagram account down, …. – out of business? Would be a shame since they made some fine jumpers.
Whatever happened to Sabre? I used to buy their knitwear in the 1980s.
Looking to support British knitwear like we all should be doing, will check with all these web sites with view to Christmas shopping, Scotland seems a good place to start. At the moment British farm are having to nearly give their fleeces away, so sad. Sue w
Brilliant that there is a source with so much useful information in one place – well done. I have been trying for a while to locate supplier/retailers of a wonderful particular woollen jumper that suffered a severe moth attack, and thanks to this site I believe I have. Thank you
Thanks for the list of real wool products. Fed up with so-called ‘wool’ jumpers, which are a mix of stuff. Look forward to buying from British firms who make really decent wool jumpers.
A lovely selection of British makers, Kate, to which I’d like to add two more from Scotland.
Scott & Charters in Hawick is now owned by Alex Begg of Ayr and makes that firm’s knitwear, as seen here: http://www.beggxco.com.
The http://www.scottcharters.com website shows what it does for itself. It’s superb quality.
In Annan in south-west Scotland, Esk Valley Knitwear is the company many premium British heritage brands (and top names in Europe and beyond) turn to for high-quality knitwear. The company is also behind a brilliant new initiative called Skippers Mill that sees a Shetland-style sweater made on Japanese seamless knitting machines, meaning no waste. These superb sweaters – in 31 excellent colours – retail for only £89 via http://www.skippersmill.com. Highly recommended.
Having looked at the Celtic @ Co website (finding their advert in the Sunday Times), it appears their products use British Wool but are actually made in the EU! Hardly what I would define as a British product…I wonder the reason for this company being listing on the ‘make it british’ website?
While their products are lovely, as a consumer I was looking to buy from a UK manufacturer this season. Thank goodness the other companies listed do what they say on the tin.
That is a very good question and you are right to ask.
Celtic & Co have a factory in Cornwall where they make their sheepskin boots and slippers. They also make a lot of their other products, including some of their knitwear, in third party factories in the UK.
However, they do also source some of their footwear and some items of clothing from factories in Europe.
They are very transparent about this on their website and in their catalogue.
For this reason we still list them on here because the majority of their products are made in the UK.
Is a cardigan (my term for a button up sweater) with the label “Woodison, British Made” the name of a brand? Store? Thanks.
Having looked at a few of the different topics covered in ‘Make it British’, and that this was one that had a title of the ‘ultimate’ knitwear, the I thought it might include some of the top brands.
Having visited the Scottish Borders and in particular Hawick, then there seem to be quite a few gaps.
I would have thought that the following would have been included:
Hawico
William Lockie
John Laing
There is even a small shop called ‘Scottish Knitwear’ on the High Street, which claims to manufacture all its own wool/cashmere products.
Add to that Pringle which manufactures ‘some’ of its products in the UK, then there seems to be a lot of omissions, especially’Ultimate’ ones.
Thanks for those suggestions Rod, we’ll definitely get in touch with those you’ve listed to guarantee their credentials before adding them to this list! 🙂
More quality cotton clothing please to be manufactured in Britain not jumpers and cardigans. Many people like myself are allergic to wool products. Can recommend Paul James quality cotton knitwear.
William Lockie of Hawick surely a glaring omission. Good to see Johnston’s getting a mention.
Formed in 1874 and 1797 respectively they have to be the most quintessential of wool brands. Both made in Scotland and true to their roots.