SOURCING & MAKING
All our waistcoats are cut, made and finished by hand in the British Isles.
Here, Now
We go the extra mile to source and to make everything we can here in the British Isles.
We source and make here for a host of reasons; we can source and make in small quantities and we can avoid shipping charges, customs delays and exchange rate variables. We can make our mistakes small and we can repair them fast. We can meet our makers, learn from them and work closely with them to make the best waistcoats we can.
Beyond the practical considerations, there are human ones. Our hope is that in our small way, we can contribute to opportunities for our suppliers and makers. By helping to showcase their work, we hope to sustain and preserve the fantastic mills and skills and makers that we have here.
We know that we must do so now if current livelihoods are to survive and future generations are able to train with and succeed them. The cost of not doing so is bigger than we might imagine.
Our Makers
Our makers are Musa Apparel in East London. Thanks to the skilled hands and practiced eyes of Musa's makers, their well-oiled machines and sharpened shears, our designs are brought to life.
The construction of our waistcoats is intricate and their making requires careful handling and meticulous attention to detail. We offer our styles in a broad size range in an unusually extensive array of fabrics – often in different widths and with many different patterns, weights and handles. To make each waistcoat, the pattern lay-out must be reconsidered, customisations and size alterations carried through.
Working with Musa enables us to make our coats exactly the way our customers want them, minimising wastage. It also allows us to offer repair and alteration services, giving fresh life to customers' coats when they need it. And last, but by no means least, it provides opportunities for skilled workers, here – preserving skills and sustaining livelihoods.
Our Fabrics
We source all our fabrics with great care in the United Kingdom.
We are thrilled to have found and to be able to work with a wide and growing array of family-owned and centuries-old mills and weavers who work with true craftsmanship to produce their textiles.
All our wonderful wools, tactile tweeds, fantastic flannels, beautiful bouclés, luscious linens and bewitching brocades are made with exacting craftsmanship here in the United Kingdom.
Owing to the lack of British makers, we have made an exception to our "made in Britain" rule with our coduroys, velvets and moleskins, light silk linings and silk matkas.
Our Mills
Amongst our marvellous suppliers, are the likes of AW Hainsworth, which has clothed royalty, dressed palaces and created ceremonial military cloths for more than two centuries. Hainsworth provides us with jewel-like solid-coloured merino wools in Melton and Doeskin weights – all both warm and wearable!
The delightful Somerset-based Fox Brothers, original creators of flannel and purveyors to everyone on Saville Row, spoil us with the most luxuriously soft merino jacketing and some exceptional tweeds.
Our warmer weight tweeds mostly come from Lewis and Hawick. On the Isle of Lewis we found the wonderful Carloway Mill, makers of the most divinely coloured of Harris Tweeds. In Hawick, which is situated on the banks of the river Teviot, just metres away from the origins of Tweed itself, is Lovat Mill. Lovat is provider to over 180 private estates and military regiments in the UK.
Our linens come from Northern Ireland direct from linen weavers, Baird McNutt.
Our Buttons
Our buttons are made by Courtney & Co in Gloucestershire.
Courtney & Co is reviving button-making in the UK using traditional techniques & new technology, natural & environmentally-friendly materials and heritage patterns in a way that is ecological, ethical and fully sustainable.
Our Labels
Our garment labels are embroidered in London and our care labels are woven in Wales.
