Can Lord Digby Jones, former UK government Minister for Trade and Director General of The CBI (Confederation of British Industry) persuade a Scottish textiles mill take their traditional heritage knitwear to China?

The Borders company features in Digby Jones: The New Troubleshooter, a forthcoming BBC television production fronted by Digby Jones, and the Peer staunchly believes that Hawick Knitwear must pursue this goal with every fibre.

But will management share his vision, the programme will ask? The episode featuring Hawick Knitwear will be shown on BBC2 on 17th April at 8pm.

Hawick Knitwear sells its knitwear, amongst other places, on The Royal Mile in Scotland’s capital Edinburgh, and Digby Jones is said to be flabbergasted to find that Hawick Knitwear's store in the capital already does booming trade with Chinese customers, so much so that the knitwear store employs Mandarin-speaking staff.

The Hawick Knitwear brand has no obvious presence in China as yet. However the sales numbers in one store in Edinburgh during the tourist season are said to be staggering – 40% cent of its sales come from non-European residents, the majority visiting from China. The store’s staff expects to speak Mandarin to 30-40 customers per day, with each tour bringing a £1000 average spend.

No wonder Digby Jones believes that a strategy for building the brand is staring Hawick Knitwear MD Benny Hartop and Brand Director Arthur Rennie in the face. Hartop and Rennie share plans to double their trade in the Hawick Knitwear brand in next two years but how will they respond to the former CBI Director General’s call to arms?

Hawick Knitwear also manufactures knitwear for labels such as Brooks Brothers and makes products for Marks & Spencer’s ‘Made in Britain’ range. The company currently has a turnover of £9 million, £2 million of which is generated by own-label product sales. It is hoping to break into the US market with its own label in the next three years and intends to double own-label turnover to £4m through Asian and US expansion, growing export revenues from 25% to 50% of overall sales.

Hawick Knitwear

In its picturesque rural setting, the Hawick Knitwear factory sits right at the heart of beautiful Teviotdale, in the Borders’ town synonymous with luxury knitwear. Textiles have always been produced in this part of Scotland, beginning as a cottage industry where fabric was produced to service local needs.

The agricultural revolution and the local breeding of thick fleeced Cheviot sheep, pastured on the hills that dominate Hawick, ensured that good quality wool was suddenly in supply for the first time.  The clear, clean water of the fast-flowing River Teviot provided the means to power industrial scale production and wash wool.  Today this process is carried on with water drawn from Hawick Knitwear’s own Artesian Well.

The story of the Hawick Knitwear factory can be traced right back to 1874. Over the last 140 years it has enjoyed numerous peaks and troughs, mirroring the general trends of UK manufacture. Currently, Hawick Knitwear produces around 300,000 garments per year, and has historically manufactured for Christian Dior, Chanel, Prada and Brooks Brothers.

Today, the luxury knitwear industry, and specifically Scottish Borders cashmere production, still dominates the region’s architecture and culture, despite the fact that the mid 20th century boom years are a fading memory and the reality that many famous Borders’ brands have now shifted production ‘off shore’ to the Far East for economic reasons.

Now knitwear production in Hawick is a specialist pursuit, held in the hands of a tight-knit workforce of around 1,000 highly skilled, extremely dedicated local specialists. Indeed, it is thanks to the foresight of the current management regime that what would otherwise become a collection of dying skills are both now not only being protected but also being extended  by a new generation of Borders’ craftspeople based here within the Hawick Knitwear factory.

Take a virtual tour of Hawick Knitwear's factory...

Management buy-out

Managing Director Benny Hartop and his team acted both bravely and decisively to secure the skills base of the Hawick factory when they led a management buy-out in 2012.

The 240 employees at Hawick Knitwear are proud, highly skilled trades-people that ally the honed skills and craftsmanship of past times to the most cutting edge and mechanised production methods of the present day.

They are undoubtedly the keepers of a very special flame – niche producers that remain both true to the exacting demand of their traditions and also the innovative legacy of a style of manufacture that has always pushed the boundaries of the technically possible, at every turn.

Fully fashioned heritage

The significance of Hawick Knitwear’s commitment to The Borders’ signature fully fashioned style of manufacture continues to this day and its importance cannot be understated.

Fully fashioned garments are renowned for their sleeker fit and refined appearance. They are also more comfortable to wear due to their construction using engineered panels that are inter-linked to make hand-finished garments that are knitted together as opposed to being cut and sewn.

Crucially, fully fashioned knitwear does not require bulky, irritating inner seams for its construction. This is why this style of manufacture, when combined with the world’s finest yarns, sets the gold standard for timeless, luxury clothing and it is also why knitwear Made In Hawick is always so highly prized as a mark of quality.

www.hawickknitwear.com