“The traditional meets the unexpected”

Sophie Ochera's knitwear is an ever-growing collection designed and inspired by folk costumes and textiles from around the world. She combines an eclectic range of  patterns and motifs all beautifully handknitted together in bright colours and modern shapes to create a perfectly harmonious patchwork. Traditional Fair isle knitting is imperitive to her aesthetic and the vision was always to re-invent this highly handcrafted technique by introducing unusual colour combinations and motifs and knitting them into simple shapes that are modern yet timeless.

The small company started out by dressing her own children. Motivated by a dissapointment in mass-produced knitwear and a desire for warmth and colour, as well as a need to make a living having left Paris for Normandy to start a family, she was able to use skills and experience gained from a 10-year career working in textile design for the fashion industry.

Sophie is passionate about slow fashion and motivating people, through her designs, to buy less and for better quality. She believes it should take time to create something beautiful and that everything should be valued for a long time, rather than the throw-away consumer culture we are easily swept up into. She strives to make the kind of knitwear that you will want to keep and pass on for generations to come.

Each sweater is made in pieces on a standard gauge one-bed knitting machine, and brought together on a circular needle and finished off by hand, incorporating lots of different colours for a beautiful and unique circular fairisle yoke. It is then washed, giving a unifying effect to the wool fibres and colours, and making the sweaters irresistibly soft and warm.