Originally a reaction against fast food, the slow movement has positioned itself in opposition to a factory approach to life; an approach that drains human work of much of its worth and meaning. In the fashion industry, the movement is called the slow clothes movement. It’s what we’ve been doing for over twenty years.

You may think that slow clothes would be prohibitively expensive to make. It is not true. The fact is that mass produced clothes (jeans for example) have production costs of a few dollars per item, yet consumers pay high prices for designer wear. What is missing is an understanding of the real costs of clothing and an appreciation of their value.

We know it is possible to make slow clothes because we do it all the time. It is a challenge. It requires us to be clever, and sharp, and smart in a different way than is needed to make things quickly or cheaply. It takes time, patience and faith. But the benefits give us something that the ordinary clothing manufacturer will never have: an intense joy when we succeed; a knowledge that we have kept a skilled artisan fully employed at home with his or her family; and the unsurpassed pride we feel in seeing the finished piece hanging in our shop.