New Wave of Knits: Machine and Hand-Knit Brands to Know Now
Some of the best things in your wardrobe do not arrive by searching; they find you, stumbled upon in a studio, recommended by a friend, or noticed on somebody walking down the street. You hold one in your hands and something shifts: the weight feels right, the texture speaks of intention, and you can almost sense the human behind it.
That tactile evidence is knitwear’s secret language; it tells you about maker, method, [and the time] in a way few other garments can.
This is where contemporary knitwear is moving; not toward faster production or broader reach, but toward the opposite: fewer pieces, better materials, and more time in the making; we confirm as how to grow a responsible brand. A new generation of independent makers treating this heritage craft not as a seasonal category but as a medium with its own logic, demands, and sensory registers. For them, knitwear isn’t an item to fill a collection; it is a form and a practice, where material, structure, and intent are inseparable.
What unites these knitwear brands below is not a single aesthetic but a shared commitment to techniques and material knowledge. Whether the work is hand-knit, machine-engineered, or hybrid, these labels insist you cannot shortcut the expertise embedded in a garment & you cannot manufacture the knowledge that comes from spending forty hours on a single piece. Taking reccomendations from the industry we spoke with Nila, an emering designer from Netherlands who sits beautifully in this niche. We met her at Edition 001, and we instantly knew from her energy and passion the quality behind what drives her work.
Callon London
Founded by Jaimee Callon McKenna, Callon London is a knitwear and textile label rooted in historical methodology, ritual, and careful making. The brand draws on deadstock and sustainably sourced yarns, produces in small batches, and works through a London-based studio model that keeps the piece close to the hand that makes it. The result is knitwear that treats cloth as both structure and symbol, or as McKenna puts it, “armor for the modern woman”.
Hades
Cassie Holland & her sister Isabel, founded HADES in London five years ago with a savings account thirty-two jumpers, turning punk and post-punk iconography into finely crafted wool knits made by a family firm in Hawick, Scotland. The references run from X-Ray Spex to David Bowie, the DNA is DIY and counter-cultural, and the production stays deliberately small to protect both quality and local craftsmanship. Worn by Alexa Chung and championed by Vogue, Liberty London, and more lately Tilda Swinton, HADES is what happens when personal taste, cultural memory, and serious craftsmanship occupy the same space.
Deparel
Co-founded by Max Mulder and JamesLangley, deparel is an Amsterdam studio where design, manufacture, and dispatch happen in-house. The brand works by hand, combines deadstock with fine raw materials, and treats experimentation as part of the production method rather than a decorative extra. Its knit and woven garments carry the imprint of a tightly controlled, no-distance process.
Vanihila
Vanihila is a Dutch slow-fashion knitwear label with an emphasis on social sustainability and feminine expression. It appears positioned at the intersection of conscious making and soft, expressive design. A brand made to connect the client to their feminine qualities in a visually empowering way. Vanihila strives to inspire the wearer to embrace not only a free-spirited but sustainable life (with her priority on selecting the most beautiful deadstock yarns).
V4K
V4K is a hand-made clothing brand founded by Viktoria Masalova (circa 2020–2022) for bold individuals who want to express their unique traits, sexuality, and strength. Each piece is emotionally driven and crafted “with heart and soul,” resulting in sensual, timeless garments that treat knitwear as a medium for personal power and identity. The brand is distributed through small international stockists and online, with a focus on daring, inspiring design rather than volume.
W1P Studios
Founded by Anaëlle Delassus and Charlotte Westphal, W1P Studios is a Berlin-based slow-fashion label working largely with deadstock and upcycled secondhand materials. Knitwear is central because it supports near zero-waste thinking, allowing the brand to build garments from material constraints rather than treating waste as a by product to be hidden.
Sulk
SULK creates subversive designs, built around time, labour, and the sculptural impact of these unique hand-made pieces. Started by Sarah Beasley, the brand uses vintage, thrifted, and recycled scrap yarns to avoid waste, and each piece can take ten to forty hours to complete, making duration part of the design language. The signature balaclava and strong silhouettes give the work its edge, but the real content is the time embedded in the fabric.
Caro Studios
Carolyn Brambilla started Caro Studios after years at Burberry and Acne Studios. The Milan-based handmade knitwear label focuses the work with a clear emphasis on the proximity between maker and garment. The small studio setup matters because it keeps production local, avoids the abstraction of large-scale manufacturing, and preserves the visible trace of the hand in the final piece. The brand reads as quiet, grounded, and materially direct.
Grace Gui
Grace Wang founded Grace Gui in Brooklyn in 2023, building a knitwear practice rooted in sericulture, natural dyeing, and zero-waste making. She raises silkworms, cares for an angora rabbit, and sources fibre from neighbours in New Jersey. Each piece hand-crafted in her Bushwick studio using patented felting techniques that make every garment unrepeatable. The work weaves together her Chinese heritage and American upbringing, turning unique experience into something you can wear.
Sania Parvez
Sania Parvez is a London-based knitwear designer who celebrates the independent body through intricate and textured garments. Embracing both traditional and experimental knit techniques Sania creates panels to stretch across the body to create abstract shapes and reveal areas of skin. The exposed cut-out brings seduction, fragility and empowerment to the forefront whilst showcasing quality and craftsmanship in each stitch.
Krystal Paniagua
London-based Krystal Paniagua founded her knitwear label in 2020, bringing a Royal College of Art MA in Womenswear and Knitwear to a practice rooted in her Puerto Rican heritage and a deep belief in adaptability as a design principle. Her handcrafted pieces are fluid, one-size-fits-most, and built to mould themselves to different body types overtime: experimental in construction, community-minded in spirit, and designed for a wardrobe that transforms with the person wearing it.
René Scheibenbauer
René Scheibenbauer founded his London label in2019 after graduating from Central Saint Martins, where his graduate collection was awarded runner-up of the L'Oréal Professionel Young Talent Award. Each collection begins with an emotional enquiry: how a garment relates to identity, movement, and gesture, with complex pattern cutting that shapes itself around the wearer rather than imposing form on them. The result is unisex pieces that hold sharp tailoring and fluid movement in the same breath, quiet, considered, and built for a body that lives in them.
Vaisseau
Vaisseau is an independent textile designer based in Montreal working entirely in secondhand and naturally sourced fibres, made to order and one of a kind. Natural dyes mean no two pieces are identical:colour shifts with each batch, and that variation is the point rather than something to be corrected. The range moves from alpaca bralettes and boucle basics to oversized jumpers priced up to £410, each piece made only when it is asked for, in a practice that refuses to produce anything it cannot account for.
CG Knit
Sophie Isabella
Sophie Isabella’s practice is defined by hand knitting without patterns, which makes each garment singular by design. Based on Vancouver Island, she works from the understanding that knitwear is complete not only as garment but also as fabric, and her pieces often feel more like constructed textile objects than conventional clothing.Her FW25 work included a floor-length triple-layer skirt in silk mohair, alpaca, and merino, made entirely by hand.
Honorable Mention:
Cecile Feilchenfeldt
Not a brand but a huge name in knitwear for the industry. Cécile Feilchenfeldt is a Paris-based textile designer whose practice sits somewhere between knitwear, couture, and material research. She works with domestic and semi-automatic machines, combining traditional knit knowledge with unexpected fibres and experimental structures that often read less like “knit” than like engineered textile sculpture. Her work is defined by volume, transformation,and a refusal of knit’s familiar appearance.
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