John Smedley - Blog

With an impressive 228 year heritage, John Smedley prides itself on its rich history and knitwear expertise.

John and Jane are archivists at John Smedley and work extremely hard piecing together the company’s history. Items include garments dating back from the 19th century to stamps once used in all underwear produced by John Smedley.

John and Jane working in the archive department

The archive continues to inspire the design team and elements have been drawn upon for the Autumn/Winter 2012 Collection.  The 1930’s saw a huge upsurge in interest in sports and sportswear. A key piece in the John Smedley range of the time was our 3-button tennis shirt and this was branded with a special sportswear logo in 1934. This striking modernist logo has endured as a classic design and we have had to make little change to it for our use today.

The sport collection takes functional pieces and adds a subtle twist of sophistication with contrast trimmings and metal buttons. The red, white and blue colours identify us as rooted in Great Britain, where all our garments have been made since 1784.

Menswear Designer, Gemma Jackson talked us through the new Sport Collection:

“This area of the range has given lots of scope for design and lends itself clearly to creating a particular look. We have had sporty elements in the past in our styles but this season we bring all the element s together to create a special range. Styles have a sports casual feel and are identified by the reworked Jay Bird logo tab which appears on the hemlines of the key styles. Stripes are fine appearing with elements of tipping. A  coordinating straight pant Freeman is included to complete the look.”

The Men's Sport Collection

Womenswear Designer, Pip Jenkins spoke about how the archive influenced her design process for the Autumn/Winter 12 Collection:

“I felt this new collection reflected the relaxed and casual look of some of the garments found in the archive, especially the new seamless lounge pant, which has similarity to the traditional long john.

All the garments have a stylish edge with the contrast trims and metal buttons. The form of the garments are relaxed but shapely, some are created on the whole garment machine to make the fit even more comfortable to wear.”

The Women's Sport Collection

To shop the new Autumn/Winter 2012 Collection visit www.johnsmedley.com

If you feel you have a piece of John Smedley’s past you would like to share with us, we’d love to hear from you. Please e-mail press@johnsmedley.com.