LONDON — British knitwear specialist Brora has tapped the award-winning gardener Charlie McCormick to create a capsule collection of men’s sweaters that channel the earth tones and rugged textures of his home on the island of Rousay in Orkney, off the northern coast of Scotland.
Brora‘s founder and creative director Victoria Stapleton said she wanted to bring a fresh perspective to the Brora menswear collection, which is a small part of the overall offer and usually consists chiefly of navy blue sweaters.
Brora x Charlie McCormick designs draw inspiration from his life as a gardener and the natural landscapes of Scotland. Developed over six months, the 20-piece collection began with McCormick’s mood board pictures of “fishing and farming people, Fair Isles and strong colors based partly on the Scottish landscape, partly on color-blocked images that caught my imagination.”
He worked closely with Brora’s design team to translate those images into a collection of sweaters and vests featuring bold color-blocked stripes, intricate patterns, Nordic and folk influences, and traditional herringbone structures, targeted to men.
The knits are made from all natural fibers — pure new wool, supersoft lambswool, merino and alpaca.
Stapleton founded Brora in the early ‘90s, and the brand has eight boutiques in the U.K. and one on Madison Avenue in New York. The bulk of the collection is womenswear, and Brora also makes knits for children and babies.
Asked why she decided to do a special capsule this season, Stapleton said Brora’s menswear needed “zhuzhing up. Sometimes we concentrate so hard on the ladies’ range, and I really felt like the men needed more attention. But I didn’t want to do another classic navy, round neck jumper. I really wanted to put a bit more imagination and creativity into the men’s range and offer them something with patterned knits.”
She added, “All the exciting women’s knitwear out there is often patterned. We haven’t done much of that in menswear. I also knew I couldn’t do patterned cashmere jumpers, as they would literally be off the radar in terms of the retail price.”
Stapleton also wanted to explore “something a little bit more rugged. We used so many beautiful yarns that are 100 percent natural and not as notoriously priced as Scottish cashmere. I also wanted to democratize this a bit more, and I also think anybody who wears their clothes hard needs a yarn that’s a little bit more sturdy.”
She tapped McCormick because she wanted a man to be involved, and because she’d seen his Instagram page filled with pictures of his Orkney home. “Then I got to thinking, ‘What do you wear on a Scottish island? And how do you wear it?’ and I was inspired by the knitwear of all the fishermen on those islands,” she said.
The main collection is currently online and in-store with additional pieces arriving on Nov. 16. Prices range from 145 pounds for the wool Fair Isle sweater vest to 245 pounds for the supersoft lambswool Nordic sweater.