What 240 years of Knitwear taught me this morning

This morning I listened to Pip Jenkins, Design Director at John Smedley — a company that has been making knitwear since 1784.

Two hundred and forty years.
There’s something incredibly grounding about that.

What struck me most wasn’t only the history (or their extraordinary knit archive), but their clarity. Their pillars are simple: Contemporary. Innovative. Luxurious. Timeless. And everything they do sits comfortably within those words.

They invest in machinery.
They invest in people.
They invest in process.

But they don’t chase trends. They observe. They refine. They begin each season with colour — sometimes 60–80 shades — and build from there. (Black, interestingly, is still their best seller.)

There’s something reassuring about that consistency.

I was equally drawn to the balance between creativity and engineering. Every garment has a full production spec. Costings are considered early. Digital sampling happens before yarn is knitted. Design is intuitive — but it’s also structured.

And that’s where I found myself reflecting.

At Detta, we speak about landscape, longevity and craftsmanship. Listening this morning reminded me how important it is to clearly define and communicate our own pillars — not just feel them internally, but articulate them outwardly.

It also made me think about the quieter details: garment labels, naming, how the inside of the knit feels as considered as the outside. And about ensuring any future production partners truly share our ethics around natural fibres and sustainability.

To define our pillars.
To strengthen our production thinking.
To ensure the brand promise and the garment reality are one and the same.

Because if a knitwear company can thrive for over two centuries, it’s not by accident.
It’s by intention.

And that feels like a lesson worth holding onto.