Words like ‘heritage’ and ‘authentic’ are often overused in this day and age when it comes to clothing brands. On the other hand, there are brands with quite literally, centuries of heritage, which just quietly get on with it. John Smedley is one such brand, quietly getting on with what it does best in the beautiful surroundings of the Peak District, where the factory is still based, still quietly producing it’s now world famous woollen jumpers for over 200 years now (est. 1784 in Lea Mills, Derbyshire) without fuss.
John Smedley doesn’t do big glossy advertising campaigns with Hollywood actors, ‘celebrities’ or footballers to tell us its a premium brand: its loyal customers already know it is.
And while to the uninitiated, who often don’t ‘get’ the brand, the jumpers may seem a little plain, logo-less and yes, some will even say ‘boring’, this makes the brand so much more enjoyable and cult-like to those who are avid fans of this understated brand. The truth is, we don’t want those who need a logo on everything to wear John Smedley – not that they ever would of course.
So this is probably the first point to make – John Smedley is for men, not boys and not teenagers. And certainly not for men who are still dressing like teenagers.
Wearing John Smedley, even the simplest jumpers and cardigans they produce, gives the wearer something really quite rare in menswear – a masculine elegance. With our already OCD tendency for needing to know everything about the brands we wear and the shock discovery that the John Smedley base was only 1 1/2 hours from us…
This called for a school trip to Derby…
And MilanStyle.co.uk was invited to the company’s factory in Derby to learn about the history of the brand, understand how the surroundings and local environment inspire the end products – and with a camera in hand – what a day out we had.
The Brand’s History and the 20 Immutable Truths of John Smedley.
Like the history of all practical British-made garments, John Smedley situated his woollen factory where it was (and still is) quite simply because there were lots of sheep about and there was a stream which would turn the mill automatically. It made sense for an entrepreneurial Victorian to start a company specialising in wool here, as indeed did the rest of the region specialise in textiles. Before ‘sustainability’ and ‘locally sourced’ became irritating modern buzz-words, the company was already showing how to make the most of local resources in a way that provided jobs for locals, produced a high-quality product and using local resources, the sheep’s wool washed in the area’s famous local spring water (the mill is located near Buxton). Little has changed today but for the fact that the majority of the wool is imported from New Zealand, a part of the world which specialises in merino wool sheep, ours being a little more coarse and ‘old-fashioned style wool’ in their fleece.
The sweaters are still as ‘hand made’ as ever, with each garment containing over a million stitches and each garment going through 35 hand finished processes.
There is a lot more to be said about how the jumpers are made, but if you do visit, make sure you read the brand’s “Twenty Truths” to learn about everything which makes the knitwear so special.
The famous John Smedley Factory Shop
With at least one of the MilanStyle team saying they were visiting “purely for research purposes only” and with “no intention of buying anything for themselves”, suddenly hearts begin to beat faster as we near the famous, old world sandstone building with it’s large hand-painted sign. As we enter the factory shop, two young Japanese men are systematically stripping the rails bare of ‘Smalls’ at an alarming rate, (good job I’m an XL) – “It’s quite common” says the assistant “the brand is hugely popular in Japan where they appreciate the quality of a product”.
All of a sudden, steely resolves made with the best of intentions have melted, spare arms are piled high with jumpers, polo-shirts and cardis, “just to see what they look like on” and any pretence of a “research only” trip has completely faded away.
The Factory Mill store…. what is there to say? How does one describe the purest of experiences? Some of us harboured dark suspicions it would merely be a dumping ground for garish, best-forgotten about, ‘TK-Maxx’ only styles which were best left for TK Maxx to buy in bulk. Could we have been more wrong. There were blacks. There were greys. There were blues. There was just about every colour and style I have seen in Harrods, Harvey Nichols and Selfridges – but here, the prices melt any resistance or notions of English reserve – ‘have some class and leave some for someone else’ – you may have held before entering. The Japanese tourists or not mad or crazed in anyway as we soon realise – surely anyone with a shred of sartorial common sense would also be stockpiling ‘Made in England’ John Smedleys in case of nuclear disaster, or worse, the brand ever, in the distant future, possibly were to go under?
What’s especially nice about the store is the cosy, unpretentious, leave-you-in-peace style customer service which is complemented by their inside out knowledge of their products in a way you probably won’t get in a department store. Which brings us to our final point.
How to wash and care for a John Smedley
We’ve all done it. Shrank a wool jumper in the wash. Shreddded a wool jumper in the wash. Left a wool jumper in a a wardrobe until next Winter to come back and find it destroyed by moths and God knows what else. (P.S. God, why did you create moths?)
The friendly assistant tell us its simple. Firstly, non-biological washing powder, or as, he tells us “the Persil in the blue box” – turns out the bio I had been washing my knitwear in had been eating my jumpers alive with all the protein eating chemicals in the powder. The second bit is simple too: 30 degrees and no higher.
Now for the weird bit. As to moths and other nasties “It sounds like an old wives tale, but when the conkers come out, get a load and put them in your chest-of-drawers and wardrobes. It really does keep moths at bay”. He swears by it after being a bit sceptical himself until one of his elderly customers finally badgered him into giving it a go after hearing him complain again about the problem. So he did. And now he has no more moth-holes. So I am going to give it a go too. And so should you.
www.johnsmedley.com
www.milanstyle.co.uk/john-smedley
John Smedley Factory & Factory Shop
Lea Mills
Derbyshire, DE4 5AG
Opening hours
Monday – Sunday 10 AM – 4 PM
