Introducing Lambswool: An Emerging Chapter in Our Knitwear
Prized for it's natural warmth, body and durability, lambswool is particulartly well suited to heavier knits and more structured silhouettes. Our men's car coat is the perfect example of this.
For AW26 we extended our lambswool range. For Claire French, our Head of Product, this natural fibre felt like a natural progression from the cashmere and Merino which heavily feature in mens and womenswear. “We essentially wanted to offer more versatility in the range,” she explains. “More casual, weekend pieces in heavier weights for the chunkier knitted styles we had in mind. For that, we needed a more durable yarn.”
That resilience is only part of its appeal. Lambswool has a natural softness and warmth but compared with cashmere it also has more body and structure, qualities that became fundamental to the design of our cable knit jumpers.
From Australia and New Zealand To The British Isles
For us, provenance is about more than making something as close to home as possible. It’s about finding the right material and matching it with the right expertise at every stage. While we could have sourced British Wool it simply isn't as soft as Australian or New Zealand sourced fleece. Looking beyond Britain for the raw fibre allowed us to retain the premium tactile quality our knitwear has become so syonomous with.
Lambswool Knit Made in Britain
"The UK has a long, rich heritage in knitwear craftsmanship. As a UK based company we want to support and celebrate what's on our own doorstep" (Beth Ranson, Head of Product Development).
Spun in Huddersfield by a family-owned business with more than 200 years of experience, we are able to support these skills while drawing on century old knowledge about how yarn behaves and how complex knitted structures are made.
Craft Is In The Detail
The quality of a knit isn’t determined by fibre alone. Yarn construction, stitch, knitting and finishing all affect how the finished garment looks, feels and wears. Even the way a jumper is washed during production can fundamentally change its character.
For our lambswool, we worked with our specialist partners to develop the finish garment that matched the yarn and design. More washing would have produced something softer and fluffier, but it would also have reduced the definition of the oversized cables. So, instead, we found a balance: enough washing to soften the wool, while retaining the body and structure that make the design distinctive. It’s this kind of detail you may never notice when you first put on a jumper. But it is fundamental to how that jumper feels, holds its shape and wears over time. This committment echos our philosophy: create true luxury products from the world's best makers.
Reworking a Classic
Cable knits have been made for generations. We wanted to respect that heritage without simply reproducing it. So we started with scale. Instead of the many narrow cables found on a traditional jumper, our design uses five dramatically oversized cables across the body. The silhouette is deliberately relaxed to balance their proportions, while a palette of cooler neutrals give the familiar construction a more contemporary feel.
However, this design choice brought it's own challenges. In comparison to a conventional cable which might move across two to four needles, we required the yarn to transfer across as many as eight to ten needles. "Working with a cable three or four times bigger than industry standard was a big ask. We really pushed the limits.” (Beth Ranson, Head of Product Development at Rise & Fall).
Of course, the bigger the cable became, the more we needed a yarn with the strength and natural body to give each cable definition. This is where lambswool came into its own.
More Than a Cable Jumper
There is nothing accidental about this knit.
The fibre, yarn, wash, silhouette and scale of every cable have all been considered together. It is the result of design, product development and specialist manufacturing working towards the same thing: taking a familiar piece and making it feel distinctly our own.
Lambswool gave us the material to do it. Its combination of softness, warmth, resilience and structure allowed us to create something more substantial than our lighter knits, while still delivering the tactile quality we look for in every material we use.
And because we source directly and work closely with the specialists who make our products, our focus can remain where we believe it should be: exceptional materials, considered design and the craft required to bring the two together.
