A Lesson in Craft: processes past and present mingle in Begg x Co’s future heirlooms

Nature is a generous architect – and a thoughtful one too. Lorraine Acornley, creative director of Scottish cashmere company Begg x Co (that ‘x’ is an ‘and’), certainly believes so. “Nature helps nature,” she says, when explaining how Scottish water is critical when it comes to maintaining maximum softness in natural fibres like cashmere. In both Hawick, the company’s knitting base in the Scottish Borders, and Ayr, where the mill and weavers are, the water quality is sublime – low in minerals, pure and abundant – thanks to the country’s volcanic geology. Scottish water is so prized that Italian manufacturers are said to have shipped it over to Umbria to try and emulate the magic.

The company is perhaps best known for its scarves, which it’s been making since 1866 when Alex Begg founded his mill in Paisley. Now, the firm produces, among other things, pocket squares, stoles and blankets in cashmere or cashmere blends. “Basically every iteration of a square or a rectangle,” says Lorraine, as well as jumpers and cardigans. The last 18 months have been among the company’s busiest, with the small but agile team adapting to remote working. “We’ve designed two whole collections over Zoom,” she says. “It’s been crazy,” but good. Despite the technological advances the company has had to make to survive, one aspect remains pretty much unchanged since Alex Begg’s time: the commitment to the human element of making. As Lorraine explains to Inigo, it’s as crucial to the alchemy of cashmere as that wonderful water.

“Alex Begg’s mill was originally in Paisley, on the outskirts of Glasgow. As the industrial revolution took hold, it moved down the west coast to Ayrshire, where the air was cleaner and the water was incredibly good; it was where the affluent people of Glasgow would holiday. The mill is still in operation and makes a lot for private-label clients, as well as us.

“When I joined, about five years ago, the company’s focus was still very much on menswear and traditional, Scottish-heritage-type things. I just thought there was such an opportunity to modernise the creative vision. We were already making these exquisite textiles, but I wanted to align the brand with the more interesting sides of our culture, not least our architectural and artistic legacy. There’s more to Scotland than just Scottie dogs and shortbread tins.

“We make almost everything in cashmere or cashmere blends of noble fibres – silk, linen, lambswool. It’s our handwriting, I think. But the history of cashmere runs deep in Scotland, thanks to the water here. The combination of these beautiful fibres and the soft water makes a unique product. Something magic happens – a bit like whiskey in oak barrels. It’s a good pairing.

“There’s something special about the life of the yarn, I think. The raw material is wool from the underbelly of goats. Ours are in Mongolia, where they live at a very high altitude – it’s incredibly cold but it’s very dry too, which is good. When the wool is clipped, it’s cleaned and sent to Italy to be spun before it reaches us. We specify the yarn count – the thickness – and the twist of it – the spiral arrangement of fibres – both of which differ depending on whether it’s being used for knitting or weaving. Nearly every aspect of what we do at this stage is bespoke to our specifications. Our sustainability manager goes over to Mongolia a few times a year to look into the husbandry and sustainability aspects, which are really important to us.

“Begg x Co feels like a modern company, but we look back at old fabrics and traditions constantly, and in the mill we use machinery that’s more than a hundred years old. It’s beautiful; polished and buffed like an incredible, old piece of furniture. There’s new equipment too, of course, but these pieces of machinery sit side-by-side, which sums it up really. It’s a reminder that while modern advancements can certainly add something, sometimes the original, craft-led way is the best. I think both have to exist together.

“The best example of this is in our ‘Arran’ finish. It’s incredible: silky, almost like a seal pelt, and with this amazing ripple pattern. Thirty-five processes are involved in getting it to look like that. Right at the very end, it’s brushed with dried teasels. They’re cut by hand, but they’re loaded into a piece of machinery, which sprays the fabric with a fine mist of Scottish water before running the dried flower heads over it, like a comb. Finally, it’s steamed using heat from copper wires, which seals it and leaves that lustre on the surface. Of course, it would be so much easier to swap the teasels for metal combs, not least because getting them is quite labour-intensive – they’re grown in Italy to a very specific size – but we’ve tried with metal replacements and it just doesn’t work as well.

“What’s really important is that we never lose that feeling of the handmade. The human aspect is vital. Craft, and the preservation of it, is so important to Begg x Co. Makers are custodians for the next generation, aren’t we? We’ve got a responsibility to make sure these skills aren’t lost. It’s good to remember that contemporary processes can respect tradition.

“So much of what we all buy is about lifestyle. It’s more about how we live and the things we want to surround ourselves with, than about volume. I know it’s a well-known concept, but I’m really into buying less but buying better. When we took over the knitwear factory in Hawick, which allowed us to move into jumpers and cardigans, it opened up another door for me. I started to think: ‘As a woman, what pieces do I want in my wardrobe? What can I not find?’ My own aesthetic has always been quite androgynous, so I’ve drawn on the affinity I feel to men’s fashion and tailoring to create our collections.

“I’ve always loved pieces that can be worn by both men and women – they remind me of wearing my dad’s old jumper. With Begg x Co I thought we had a great opportunity to create pieces like that, with iconic silhouettes. It’s not about fashion, it’s about beautiful craftsmanship. It’s about making tomorrow’s heirlooms.”

Further reading

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