Centurion ICC Winter 2020

Her modern approach,

Her modern approach, with sustainable, traceable production and designs developed in London and promoted on her website and social media as well as stores, is Westernfacing – fashionable oversized sweaters, super-soft and light, are bestsellers – but she never forgets her country’s craft heritage. “In a remote, nomadic country people have to be self-sufficient,” she says. “Traditionally everyone knew how to knit, sew and embroider because they made their own clothes, and I have excellent craftspeople who hand embroider my decorative styles and understand the luxury of our designs.” This season she has included beading – pre-Covid, evening sweaters were trending – but says at the moment comforting classics are now in demand. Between these two geographical extremes lies Scotland, where the Borders valleys were also remote when cashmere processing started Below: Mandkhai’s cashmere designs incorporate handworked beading Opposite: Barrie has recreated classic contrast-edged and buttoned styles for Chanel’s demicouture Métiers d’Art collection two centuries ago, using the unpolluted waters of its rivers. With a highly skilled workforce and refined machinery, it is still cashmere central and here Isabel Ettedgui produces the understated luxury knitwear for Connolly (connollyengland.com), her subtly sports-inspired brand sold from a discreet town house in London’s Mayfair. Traditional inspiration is interpreted for cool urban life: Fair Isle patterns, Scottish cabling based on boat ropes and rigging, 1940s-style chunky sports ribbing and speckled patterns from the plumage of the rare capercaillie grouse are traditionally made fully fashioned and linked by hand into modern, oversized sweaters, cardigans and even skirts. The monochrome Fair Isle with a traditional, seamless, circular collar that takes great skill, is made to order, as is the long skirt, where monochrome mélange cashmere yarns are mixed to a pattern but according to the knitter’s individual eye, so each is slightly different. Fashion designers are increasingly striving to maintain links with local knitters, and to include them in the creative process when inspiration strikes. Irish designer Simone Rocha (simonerocha.com), for instance, based her autumn collection on life’s rites of passage, with the white of first communion or wedding dresses and the black of formal and funeral wear extended to accessories alongside garments. Molly Goddard (mollygoddard. com) uses Fair Isle, knitted in circular form at a small Scottish, third-generation family factory and made from lambswool spun by a 150-year-old factory, to give substance to her signature tulle confections. Northern Irish designer JW Anderson (jwanderson. com) has experimented with knit since his first collection in 2008, this time blowing up metallic yarns to architectural proportions. “I like this odd, modular shape that we constructed out of circular knits”, he says. As a creative innovator, Anderson (who also designs for LVMH-owned Loewe and is supported by the group) is in the good company of luxury brands whose deep pockets mean no limits on technical innovation or hiring the best craftspeople for individually handworked items. Wherever their location, the brands go to the best traditional source, as typified by Chanel’s 2012 purchase of Barrie, a 117-year-old Scottish brand known for superb quality, classic cashmeres and complex intarsia patterns. It had supplied Chanel since the 1920s and has become one of the artisan PHOTO © MANDKHAI 58 CENTURION-MAGAZINE.COM

PHOTO OLIVIER SAILLANT firms which Chanel owns and celebrates in the annual Métiers d’Art demi-couture collection. For Barrie (barrie.com) the move meant not only investment but design with a more “fashion” mindset – daring colour mixes, more youthful shapes, embroidery and modern intarsia. As creative director for Alexander McQueen (alexandermcqueen.com), part of the Kering Group which owns Gucci and Saint Laurent, Sarah Burton is a big supporter of artisan crafts and this season has succeeded in blending knit with the house trademark sharp tailoring. What look like sharply cut, textured dresses and coats are actually knitted in English rib and intarsia with a magnified Argyle pattern, embroidered by hand in red. Each is two garments invisibly pieced together – a men’s rib and a women’s peplum sweater made in flessage, the knit equivalent of biascutting, to give drape. They are made in Italy, the long-term home of top-quality industrial knit with an artisan flourish. Its secrets are well known to Maria Grazia Chiuri, the Dior designer (dior.com) who links it this season with Parisian couture tailoring tradition in her first knitted version of the iconic Bar jacket, which took four prototypes to perfect. Pieced together by hand, it looks as elegantly structured as the original but offers modern comfort and freedom. Italy is also the home of another knitwear visionary. Brunello Cucinelli (brunellocucinelli.com) is a farmer’s son from Umbria – a rugged province full of resourceful home knitters – who became a combination of cashmere tycoon and philosopher. From 1978 he produced plain, top-quality cashmere in interesting colours but, realising the local knitting skills went further, he began including hand embroidery, fine metal chain and sequin beading, and new ways to tease the yarn into textures like fur or fleece. Now these special pieces, some of which take over 30 hours to complete, form the Opera collection, which is in very short supply but has been hugely inspirational for a number of aspiring luxury brands. Cucinelli unsurprisingly remains ahead of the game, long practising sustainability and giving 20 per cent of company profits to charitable projects. Perhaps he predicted the knitwear revolution that we’re seeing across the globe – but who else, even a decade ago, would have looked at the humble sweater and foreseen such dramatic consequences on catwalks and couches alike? • CENTURION-MAGAZINE.COM 59