The John Smedley story began during the infancy of the industrial revolution at our factory in Lea Mills, Derbyshire where you can still find us, over 230 years later.

In 1784 our factory started life producing simple muslin fabric and spinning cotton and in 1825 we moved on to producing more complex garments using one of the first ever fully fashioned knitting machines, creating the original.

Moving on to 1914 where we began exporting to the far reaches of the globe and over time established ourselves as one of Britain’s most famous clothing brands.

Within the 1950’s and 60’s we became the brand of choice for many famous faces, including Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn and the Beatles amongst many others and by 1980 we had established ourselves as the go-to knitwear brand for British designers such as Dame Vivienne Westwood and Sir Paul Smith.