Why I Can’t Stop Buying British-Made Clothes (Even When They Cost a Fortune)

I was standing in this tiny workroom in Hackney last month, watching a woman who had to be in her sixties cutting fabric with scissors that probably cost more than my rent. The precision was mesmerizing – she moved through that wool like she’d been doing it her entire life, which, it turns out, she basically had. Two younger women stood nearby taking notes, and honestly? The whole scene felt almost sacred.

The designer showing me around picked up this wool jacket from a nearby rail. Nothing flashy about it, just beautifully made in that way you don’t see much anymore. “This is one of ours,” she said, and there was this quiet pride in her voice that hit me right in the chest. “Cut, sewn, and finished right here in London. The wool’s from Yorkshire, buttons from the Midlands.”

She paused, running her fingers along a seam that was so perfectly executed it looked like machine work but clearly wasn’t. “Costs me twice as much to make it this way, but…” she trailed off.

“But it’s worth it,” I said, because obviously it was.

She nodded. “Always has been.”

That jacket came home with me, by the way. Cost roughly what I spend on groceries in a month, which is… well, it’s a lot. But six months later, I can tell you it was worth every penny I probably shouldn’t have spent.

Here’s the thing about British-made fashion – it’s complicated. We’re not exactly a manufacturing powerhouse anymore, are we? Most of the mills that made this country famous for textiles have either closed or moved production overseas. Manchester isn’t churning out cotton goods like it used to. The Midlands knitwear industry is a shadow of what it was. Northampton still makes shoes, but not like it did fifty years ago.

But – and this is a big but – British manufacturing didn’t actually die. It just got smaller, more specialized, and weirdly, sometimes better.

My first real encounter with this happened during university. Our tutor dragged us to some knitwear factory in the Scottish Borders, and I’ll be honest, I was expecting dusty heritage tourism nonsense. Instead, we found this incredibly modern facility where they were making cashmere sweaters for brands I couldn’t afford to look at, let alone buy.

The factory manager was this formidable woman named Margaret who knew more about knitting machines than I know about anything. She showed us this massive piece of equipment that apparently cost more than most people’s houses. “Could run this in China for a quarter of the price,” she said, giving it an affectionate pat. “But they don’t have sixty years of experience between three workers, do they?”

Then she showed us something that blew my mind – two identical cashmere jumpers, one destined for a French luxury brand, the other for a high-street retailer. Only difference was the label. “Quality’s quality,” she shrugged. “Just depends what someone wants to pay for the name.”

That visit changed everything for me. I’d assumed British manufacturing was basically dead, kept alive only for tourism and nostalgia. What I found instead was this whole shadow industry – smaller than before, sure, but still making incredible clothes. Often for brands that didn’t even advertise the fact.

So I started seeking out labels that actually celebrated being made here. Not just the ones that wave around vague “British heritage” while producing everything in Bangladesh, but companies actually committed to domestic manufacturing.

Community Clothing was my gateway drug. Patrick Grant’s idea is brilliant in its simplicity – use the downtime in British factories to make well-constructed basics at reasonable prices. When big commercial orders aren’t running, why not make t-shirts and jeans for regular people?

I bought one of their denim jackets four years ago. Ninety-five pounds, which felt like a lot at the time. Made in Blackburn by people whose names I’ll never know but somehow still feel connected to. That jacket has become my uniform – I wear it constantly, and it just keeps getting better. The denim has softened exactly how good denim should. Every time I put it on, I think about those machinists in Lancashire and feel… I don’t know, grateful? Connected to something real?

At the opposite end of the price spectrum, there’s Hiut Denim in Wales. After the town’s jean factory closed – 400 jobs gone when production moved to Morocco – David and Clare Hieatt decided to bring denim manufacturing back. Started with just a handful of the original workers, calling them “Grand Masters” because they’d spent decades perfecting their craft.

I visited their factory last year. Each pair of jeans is made start-to-finish by one person, whose name gets written inside the pocket. “When you know who made your jeans,” David told me, “you think about them differently.”

He’s absolutely right. My Hiut jeans cost three times what I’d normally spend on denim. But after eighteen months of regular wear, they’re developing this personal pattern of fading that tells the story of how I live. They’re not just clothes anymore – they’re like a collaboration between me and someone in Wales whose handiwork I wear every week.

This idea keeps coming up with British-made fashion – clothes that improve rather than deteriorate. The White T-Shirt Company makes organic cotton tees in Leicester that actually get softer with every wash instead of falling apart. Blackhorse Lane Ateliers produces selvedge denim in Walthamstow and offers free repairs for life. For life! When’s the last time any company offered you anything for life?

Private White V.C. operates from this century-old factory in Manchester, and their CEO James Eden doesn’t mince words: “We’re not interested in making disposable clothing. Everything we produce should outlast the person who buys it.” Their worker jackets come with lifetime guarantees – actual lifetime, not marketing lifetime.

It’s not just about quality though. There’s the sustainability angle, which as someone who spends her days writing carbon footprint reports, I can’t ignore. When your clothes are made 200 miles away instead of 2,000, the environmental impact is significantly different. Plus, you can actually visit these factories, see working conditions firsthand. There’s nowhere to hide dodgy practices when everything’s happening in your backyard.

Phoebe English runs her entire operation from London, and when I interviewed her last year, she told me something that stuck: “I know the name of every person who makes our clothes. I can tell you exactly where every material comes from. That’s only possible because we keep everything close.”

Her collections are small, thoughtful, and produced with virtually no waste. They don’t look “sustainable” in that crunchy granola way sustainable fashion often does, but environmentally? They’re impeccable.

The price thing is real though. Let’s not pretend it isn’t. British-made fashion costs more because it should cost more. Fair wages, high standards, smaller production runs – these things have actual costs that someone has to pay. That forty-five pound organic cotton t-shirt I bought three years ago seemed expensive until I calculated cost-per-wear against all the cheap ones I used to replace constantly.

The three-hundred-pound wool coat I saved up for in 2019 still looks perfect after five brutal London winters. Meanwhile, I’ve watched friends cycle through multiple cheaper alternatives that lasted maybe one season each.

“Buy less, buy better” sounds like marketing speak, but mathematically it makes sense. The question isn’t whether we can afford quality clothes – it’s whether we can afford the true cost of constantly replacing cheap ones.

Not all British manufacturing is automatically superior, obviously. But domestic production offers something invaluable – visibility. You can see how things are made, ask questions, hold companies accountable. Try doing that with a supply chain that spans three continents and involves dozens of subcontractors.

Some of my favorite discoveries have been smaller brands doing incredible work without much fanfare. Tender makes naturally-dyed workwear using techniques that date back centuries. L.F.Markey produces cheerful, practical everyday clothes in East London. Albam creates understated menswear designed to age beautifully.

The footwear situation deserves special mention. While most shoe production moved overseas, Northamptonshire still hosts brands like Tricker’s and Crockett & Jones, making world-class footwear the same way they have for over a century. A pair of Tricker’s brogues requires 260 separate operations, almost all by hand. They cost more than most people want to spend on shoes, but with proper care and occasional resoling, they’ll outlast their owners.

During the pandemic, the value of domestic manufacturing became crystal clear. When global supply chains collapsed, British factories pivoted to making PPE. The same skilled workers who’d been crafting luxury garments suddenly found themselves producing medical gowns and masks. It was a powerful reminder that manufacturing capability isn’t just about fashion – it’s about national resilience.

This renewed interest has created opportunities for younger manufacturers too. I recently visited a small factory in Yorkshire started by three former fashion students who’d interned at heritage brands and seen the demand for high-quality local production. They’re now making clothes for independent designers who couldn’t previously find UK manufacturers willing to handle smaller orders.

“We’re tiny compared to what used to be here,” one founder told me while we watched a machinist carefully constructing a jacket. “But we’re growing. And we’re teaching skills that wouldn’t otherwise exist.”

That knowledge transfer is crucial. Many of the most experienced workers are nearing retirement, taking decades of expertise with them. Brands like Alexander McQueen have established apprenticeship programs to ensure these techniques survive. Their Bright Young Things program actively recruits young people interested in the technical side of fashion, pairing them with experienced craftspeople.

As consumers, supporting British manufacturing isn’t just about specific brands – it’s about asking questions. Where was this made? Under what conditions? How long should it last? Even high-street retailers sometimes produce domestically, but they rarely advertise it unless you ask.

That jacket from the Hackney studio has become one of my most treasured possessions. Not just because it’s beautifully made – though it is, the kind of construction that gets better every season – but because of what it represents. Every time I wear it, I remember that sunlit workroom, the sound of scissors through wool, the concentration on the cutter’s face.

British fashion manufacturing might be smaller than it once was, but it’s far from finished.

It’s evolved, adapted, and maybe become more meaningful precisely because it’s no longer the default. The brands committed to domestic production aren’t just preserving jobs – they’re challenging us to completely rethink our relationship with clothes. To see them as investments rather than disposables, as products of human skill rather than anonymous commodities.

Next time you’re about to buy something, just ask yourself – could I find a British-made alternative? The answer might be no, and it might not fit your budget. But asking the question is the first step toward understanding the real value of what we wear. Not just in pounds, but in human expertise, environmental impact, and genuine quality that lasts.

Trust me, once you start down this path, it’s hard to go back to disposable fashion. Even when it costs a fortune.