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Barrie is one of the oldest cashmere knitwear manufactures in Scotland. In 2012, Barrie joined the prestigious circle of the Chanel Métiers d’Art houses.
The Barrie label, launched in 2014, stands out by its constant search for technical innovation and its contemporary vision, combined with the savoir-faire of high-end cashmere. Conceived by artistic director Augustin Dol-Maillot, the collections bring together creativity, heritage and attention to detail.
With their lives often dependent on the land and the sea, locals have relied for centuries on the warmth and protection of woolen garments, whose thickness and natural oils shield them from the harsh elements.
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With their lives often dependent on the land and the sea, locals have relied for centuries on the warmth and protection of woolen garments, whose thickness and natural oils shield them from the harsh elements.
From the 18th Century onwards, weaving and knitting became Scottish cottage industries whose excellence soon gained international renown. When cashmere reached European shores, Scotland became the natural focus of expertise for the manufacture of yarn and garments in this fine material. In the town of Hawick, on the banks of the river Teviot, the Barrie manufacture opened in 1903 and rapidly developed its savoir-faire to become a reference in the field. In 2012, long-standing client Chanel acquired Barrie. Two years later, the house’s own label was launched to showcase its heritage and craftsmanship.
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Dol-Maillot
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Augustin Dol-Maillot was named artistic director of Barrie’s Parisian studio in 2018.
Born in 1989, having worked at Chanel with both Karl Lagerfeld and Virginie Viard, he uses a creative process that is both rich and innovative, looking to the history of fashion to find shapes and influences that he mixes with classic knitwear codes. For Augustin Dol-Maillot, this vision is also a timeless one: from one season to another, he weaves a permanent story, inspired both by Scottish landscapes and Anglo-Saxon culture. Barrie garments are designed to work together in the long run, becoming much-loved mainstays of an enduring, timeless wardrobe.
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Tradition meets technology within the walls of Barrie’s Hawick manufacture. 70-year-old Bentley Cotton looms run alongside high-tech Shima Seiki machines, dedicated to solving the complex challenges of the intricate Barrie designs. The human hand and eye remain essential, however: Barrie is the only manufacture in the world which still judges the washing of each garment individually, and every detail of the assembly process is done by hand.
Three separate verification steps are required for a piece to be deemed suitable to leave the factory. To ensure the transmission of such craftsmanship, Barrie counts its own training school, closely linked to the colleges and universities in the area. The manufacture also has a Level 1 GOTS (Global Organic Textile Standard) certification, which guarantees complete respect for the environment at every level of the production and transformation process.
The story of a Barrie sweater goes a great deal further than the choice of fibres and a unique knitting technique. As a recipient of a Level 1 GOTS (Global Organic Textile Standard) certification, Barrie been part of a major Chanel initiative launched in 2015 to ensure the quality and traceability of cashmere all the way to its source on the high plateaus of Upper Mongolia, where the capra hircus goats are raised. Herd numbers, durable use of pastures and standards of animal well-being are just some of the strict controls put into place to ensure a raw material that is as respectful of the earth as it is of the creatures and humans involved in the process. The collected fibres are treated by batch, making it possible to retrace the exact origin of each one down to the precise zone of provenance and the name of the herder.
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A sustainable thread
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After careful combing of the goats, the fibres are washed and dehaired before shipment to Scotland, where the cashmere is spun and dyed by the Todd & Duncan firm, founded in 1897. The staff of the Barrie manufacture itself take great pride in being part of a bigger picture, constantly searching for ways to ensure more sustainable production methods. No treatment or softener is used in the washing of the garments, for instance. The most recent shift is the switch to a recycled – and recyclable – paper “polybag” to wrap the finished product, instead of a single-use plastic pouch.
When you buy a Barrie piece, you support a community in Mongolia and Scotland who respects nature, humans and animals, soil and water through their traceable process. Barrie is a rich and timeless garment to wear all year round, to pass onto your loved ones in the future.
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