What hasn’t changed in 50 years
This is the second post in our series counting down to Bill Baber’s 50th anniversary on 26th May 2027. Read the first post, 50 Years of Customer Stories, and follow along each month as we share more of our story.
50 years ago, when we were in our 20’s, we put out our very first advert. Our business was known as Nwamaka at Freshly Pict at the time and this is how we described ourselves:
“If you love the colours, textures and styles of traditional knits in pure wools but if you enjoy pleasant surprises. Come and see what they’re doing to Tradition at Freshly Pict!”
We like to think we are still doing exactly that, using quality yarns to create something that combines tradition and innovation. Nearly 50 years on, as we prepare to celebrate our big birthday, the name may have changed but our instincts haven’t. These are the principles that have guided us from the beginning, and that we have no intention of revisiting.
Always designing, always creating
To always keep creating and designing. We wanted to remain a design business and to stay creative. To create our own design landscape, rather than following the crowd. We love Scottish knitwear traditions but wanted to mix them with our own colour palettes and style. That instinct to make something genuinely our own, rather than follow where the market was heading, has been there since our earliest Freshly Pict days, and it still shapes every collection we produce.
Helen knitting at Freshly Pict
Colour
We know and love colour! Colour is perhaps the most immediately recognisable thing about Helen’s designs, it’s where tradition and our own sensibility meet. We have always loved colour and the creation of colourways. Finding a way to combine colours to enhance the shape of each pattern is a joy. We’ve been developing a colour story for five decades, rooted in Scottish landscape, craft and love for colour itself.
Colour is one of our favourite things!
Fibres chosen with purpose
Using practical and wearable fibres has always been important to us. We love natural fibres but also seeing what innovations are being made within the industry. At the start of our history we knitted large jackets and jumpers using only Shetland Wool but over the years this changed. We even went many years without much wool in our collection and instead used silk, linen and cotton in the majority of our garments which led to the development of gorgeously draping cape styles. In recent years wool has had a resurgence and we are thrilled to use yarn from all around the world, much of it spun in Italy, Ireland and Scotland throughout our range again including our bestselling Marcia sweaters. In each case we’ve been able to create a collection of garments that are suited to the yarn itself. The fibre comes first, and the design follows from what that material excels at.
Bill and Helen
Knitted by us and finished by hand
To design and make everything ourselves. This was important to us in 1977 and still now in our 50th year. We’ve never wanted to outsource our manufacturing, we want to knit and hand finish each and every garment for you. In an industry that has moved almost entirely in the other direction, this remains one of the things we are most proud of.
We take great pride that we knit and hand finish every garment
A family business
A family business. This has become increasingly important as our family grew! When we started we knew we wanted to work together. Helen was the chief knitter and Bill started his knitting journey when she was injured and needed help. Find out more about this story at our blog How Bill Baber Became a Knitter. Jack and Amelie grew up around the business, we’d take them to trade shows, they’d be in the Edinburgh Grassmarket Workshop all the time, so to see them grow up and have Jack join us in the business is truly lovely. The business has always been shaped by the people in it, and that is as true now as it was at the start.
We’ve always been a family business
Garments for real wardrobes
Our pieces are not just there to be fashionable, they have to fit in with someone’s wardrobe. We want them to become a garment that they reach for regularly. When we started knitting, people valued the knitwear that their own grandparents had made, that sense of a piece having genuine worth, beyond its price tag, is something we have always tried to honour.
Lucy in her much loved Marcia sweater
Built to last
We always wanted to knit long lasting garments. Sustainable fashion isn’t just about the fabrics used for us. We want our pieces to last when they are cared for and to make people feel like they have chosen a piece that will remain in their wardrobe for years. Jumpers from Bill Baber Knitwear will hopefully last you decades and they carry memories with them. If you bought a piece from us while on holiday then we hope every time you wear it it takes you back to your Scotland trip. Or if you’ve been passed a piece by a relative, it carries the memories of them and that relationship.
That idea, that a garment can hold memory, feels like the best summary of what we have always been trying to make. Not just something well crafted, but something worth keeping.
Making long lasting pieces and seeing them passed down is a real joy to us
This is the second post in our series counting down to Bill Baber’s 50th anniversary on 26th May 2027. Read the first post, 50 Years of Customer Stories, and follow along each month as we share more of our story.