Knitwear Designers You Need to Know

The most luxurious way to layer, from three under the radar knitwear designers you need to know.

By Natalie Trevis

Ryan Roche

Ryan Roche has never conformed to the idea of fast fashion. Setting up in 2011 in a studio at home in Rhinecliff NY, her vision has always been shaped on her own terms. Producing cashmere in mineral tones that are infinitely soft to the touch and draped in new and unusual ways, her work is a labour of love that has earnt her the attention of the CFDA (she was a finalist for the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund), a series of loyal customers around the globe and stockists from from Barneys New York to Net-a-Porter. Working on pieces with a women’s cooperative in Nepal, Roche has an eye on sustainability and a knack for reinventing the classics that makes wearing a Ryan Roche knit a quietly extravagant indulgence.

Loro Piana

Known as the fibre of the gods, the fleece from the South American llama-like vicuña is ultra-fine and only gathered from each animal by luxury knitwear brand Loro Piana at its Peruvian nature reserve once every two years. That it takes six fleeces to make one sweater gives a sense of the rare and precious nature of each piece. From softly draped cardigans to ombre polo necks of exquisite natural quality, this is knitwear that strikes a subtly exclusive note. Just as breathtakingly soft are the baby cashmere knits, made from fibres combed from the underfleece of Hircus goat kids before their first birthday and even finer than traditional cashmere. If it’s warmth, comfort and sophisticated polish that is your knitwear style, then it doesn’t get better than this.

Barrie

Scotland has a long tradition with knitwear, it's an industry synonymous with the country’s heritage and craftsmanship since the 1770s. Pringle of Scotland might be the Scottish knitwear line that springs to mind (although its production is now largely outsourced), but it is niche brands such as &Daughter and Queene and Belle that are now taking on the mantle of contemporary Scottish knitwear. So too Barrie, an historic mill in Hawick in the Scottish Borders but also now a dynamic knitwear label in its own right. Producing high end knitwear for Chanel for many years, when the mill faced financial difficulties in 2012 an investment arm of the Parisian megabrand stepped in to purchase it: securing Chanel's supply chain and casting Barrie as an exclusive and youthful heritage brand (stocked in the UAE at Boutique 1).

Designed by Odile Massuger, who also oversees knitwear for Chanel, Barrie is a playful take on what can be often be a conservative sector, offering colour, print and off-kilter twinsets (for spring/summer 2016 with a Sixties twist) helped along by a debut campaign starring Lily Collins and shot by Karl Lagerfeld himself. Chanel knitwear in the form of a contemporary cult label? The art of the festive jumper just took on a whole new meaning.