Making things better

It was never meant to take this long. But sometimes these things can’t be helped. After a six-month hiatus, production is back on track, wheels are in motion — insert your cliché here — and the first bunch of autumn-ready garments are off the line at a new north London factory.

By every measure, the new-found factory seems a sure-footed step-up. It’s a place of meticulous cutters, unflappable seamsters, a marvellous-looking button-sewing contraption, and pleasingly regimented tea-breaks. And all this — even the tea-breaks — will, modesty aside, be evident in the above-mentioned garments, among their number trousers, jackets, and overshirts. For every one, the bar on make and finish has been considerably upped, making for, simply put, better-looking, longer-lasting garments.

So, six months without much to hold up, yes — but time wasted, most conclusively no.

There’ll be a closer look at the factory in the weeks to come. Far before then, garments, fresh off its line, will begin appearing in the shop in the second half of this month. They will be joined, in short order, by bundles of Nottingham-knitted knitwear, and, just a little further down the line, some expertly Somerset-made shirts. Onwards things go.