Our History


 

Our founder Alessandra Marchini-Gunn was born in Italy on the 26th September 1918. During the early 60’s Alessandra and her Scottish husband Donald focused their working life on the Scotch whisky industry, starting up an Italian importing and distribution company located in Genoa in Northern Italy. During their Scotch whisky travels Alessandra began to develop a passion for floral designs, which became colourful patterns for hand Intarsia knitwear. Alessandra’s talent led to more frequent travels to Scotland in the 70’s to identify the best location for a family knitwear business.
Eventually she discovered the right location in the Borders of Scotland, where abundant soft water flows in the rivers throughout the year and skilled workers could be found to transpose her unique patterns to cashmere Intarsia.

Within only a few years Paul, Alessandra’s son, set up a successful cashmere Intarsia woollen mill with outstanding craftsmanship working on every minute detail of the designs, which were bequeathed by his mother. He travelled to London, where sales to reputable outlets in Mayfair and St. James were followed by quick expansion to the States and Japan. In these countries cashmere Intarsia knitwear garments of Glenevan Mill were considered unique pieces of art. His travels brought an increasing awareness of individual customers’ needs and a private showroom was opened next to the factory in Innerleithen where customers could be measured for bespoke garments.

 

Over the last few years, Alessandra’s nieces have been arduously involved in relaunching the company, recreating some of Glenevan’s heritage designs and creating new contemporary designs. We are still crafting hand-made garments and we are still based in the Scottish Borders.

 

More to read on our history in our blog here. Subscribe to our newsletter below to get our updates!