BACKGROUND
Founder, Ronnie Chiu, was gifted two sweaters by his father that were made in Scotland in the 1970s. Impressed by how long they lasted, Ronnie searched for the same knitters that made his father’s sweaters. Eventually he found them, still making sweaters to this supreme quality. Ronnie created a knitwear collection with them, in slimmer silhouettes and updated styles, but to the same exacting standards as his father’s sweaters.
QUALITY
Quality lies at the heart of what we do.
We are confident that every sweater is the world’s highest quality, because the highest quality is maintained at every stage of manufacture – a well-known feature of Scottish made knitwear.
This means a garment that is soft, but just as importantly, durable. A lot of cashmere today might feel soft to start with, but loses shape, pills and thins out over 2 -3 years. We champion the old Scottish craft of knitwear making where garments are made to last not a few years, but decades, and can be passed on to the next generation. Scottish made knitwear gets better with age, not worse. This is because Scottish knitters are famous for using a lot more yarn than knitters elsewhere, resulting in a densely knitted garment that holds shape despite decades of wear. They are also known to religiously use only the very finest fibres and yarns, ensuring that every facet of knitwear making is at its very best.
With hand washing once or twice a year, Scottish made knitwear will pill less and less as the fibres settle and lock into place; it will keep its warmth, and become more robust over time. Because of how strong the garment is, it has a certain “crunch” on first touch, but softens naturally over time.
In our disposable culture of today, much of the quality in the clothes that our parents and grandparents enjoyed had been abandoned in favour of things that are quick to make, but quick to break; along with the discipline to nurture your belongings and make them last.
Our passion is in bringing back clothes that stand the test of time, by partnering with skilled heritage clothing makers who have committed to the highest standards of craftsmanship over the years and continue to create the world’s best garments. With a contemporary aesthetic and design philosophy in mind, we hope to make heirloom quality clothing relevant to our generation.
COLLECTIONS
Our cashmere collection includes a thick and heavy shawl collar cardigan in 8-ply cashmere, a rib-stitch rollneck in 4-ply cashmere, and some mid weight essentials such as crew necks, v necks and polo shirts.
Our superfine lambswool collection includes our popular 6-ply shawl collar cardigan, shawl coats, thick cable knit sweaters, cricket sweaters and other essentials.
Our cashmere silk and extra fine merino collections consist of lighter weight pieces that are perfect for warmer weather, including a cashmere silk polo shirt with a “melt-in-your-hand” texture, and a short sleeved sport shirt – a “smart” substitute to the t-shirt.
Scottish Borders
Ayr
Kinross
Scotland
United Kingdom
We are confident that our knitwear is the world's very best, because the very best is used at every stage of manufacture.
STAGE 1 - FINEST FIBRES
This involves at stage one, using the world’s finest fibres. This doesn't just mean using natural fibres; it means using the highest grade there is of a particular fibre, be it cashmere, superfine lambswool, cashmere silk, or extrafine merino.
Our cashmere fibres are cultivated in the mountains of inner Mongolia and are 15.5 microns in diameter and 38mm in length, making these the softest and longest cashmere fibres available. As they are the highest grade, these cashmere fibres are rare – the type that Scottish knitters have always used since the turn of the century to make the world’s finest cashmere pieces that last generations.
Our superfine lambswool is from a special kind of sheep in South Africa that produces the world’s finest and softest lambswool fibres. Lambswool is traditionally known as fairly coarse and uncomfortable, but not with our superfine lambswool. At 18.5 microns and 42mm in length, our lambswool fibres are significantly finer and softer than any other ordinary lambswool.
Our cashmere silk is sourced by world famous fine yarn Italian spinners Cariaggi and they use a blend of the world’s finest cashmere and silk to create this yarn. The cashmere is 15.7 microns and 45 – 46mm in length, and the silk fibres are 11 micron class aa1 in diameter and 58 – 60mm in length. These are the world’s finest and longest fibres – making any resulting garment unimaginably soft yet robust.
Our extrafine merino is sourced by Zegna Baruffa, Italian spinners who pioneered in the 1970s in creating the world’s softest and finest merino yarns. Our garments made in this fibre are incredibly soft to wear against the skin and has a sporty feel to it. It is so soft and comfortable that it was described by one of our customers as a ‘second skin’.
STAGE 2 - FINEST SPINNERS
The world’s finest yarn spinners are either Scottish or Italian; but each spinner has their own unique expertise so we choose yarns from spinners who are the best at producing that particular yarn.
Cashmere yarn: Todd & Duncan (Kinross, Scotland)
Superfine lambswool yarn: Todd & Duncan (Kinross, Scotland)
Cashmere silk yarn: Cariaggi (Cagli, Italy)
Extrafine merino yarn: Zegna Baruffa (Biella, Italy)
STAGE 3 - FINEST KNITTERS
We partner with the world’s finest knitters to complete the final stage of knitwear manufacture which is the knitting and washing. Based in the Scottish Borders, our knitters are from a town renowned in the fashion industry as the home to the world’s most skilled knitters, famous for making knitwear that lasts not 5 – 10 years, but generations.
Coupled with finished garments being washed in soft Scottish water with the perfect PH balance and minerals, our knitwear has a remarkably soft handle that cannot be found anywhere else, yet has the resilience that will see it through decades of wear.
All of this information can be found on our website in extensive detail, which we hope will allow visitors to our site to be confident that our knitwear is a worthwhile investment.
