Mencyclopaedia: John Smedley

Britain's best-known, top-tier knitwear manufacturer is famed for its longevity (228 years), its claim to have invented long johns, and the unimpeachable quality of its products. Yet as a hub for the international trafficking of cocaine, John Smedley barely had a reputation to boast of until this summer. Then, in June, staff discovered a backpack stuffed with £250, 000 worth of the drug hidden in a shipment of Peruvian cotton. "We couldn't believe it," said managing director Ian Maclean, a 7th generation descendant of the company's founder. The haul was described by police as Derbyshire's largest for months.

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Today around 380 employees work at the same Matlock site where the company was founded in 1784 by John Smedley and his business partner Peter Nightingale (a forbear of Florence). Ever since, for the full span of the flow and ebb of Britain's Industrial Revolution, Smedley has spun fine-gauge knitted goods. For nearly two centuries it specialised predominantly in underwear. Maclean reports that the oldest surviving John Smedley garment in its archive is a pair of underpants produced in 1847, and adds: "we believe that long johns are called long johns because of John Smedley." There is, apparently, a rival claim that this vital midwinter undergarment was christened in honour of a boxer named John L. Sullivan, but Maclean deems this suspect. During both great wars the Smedley factory was turned over to the production of underwear for the front-line troops; Smedley men who themselves served were all regularly sent aid packages from the company, some of which contained food, and some of which contained long johns and vests.

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In the last quarter of the 20th century, the British underwear industry - like every other niche in domestic manufacturing - became exposed to then undercut by competitors from across the world. Very early, Smedley's management took the decision to step out of underwear and focus instead on the production of the finest possible knitted outer-garments. It has long-standing contracts with New Zealand's best merino producers for the wool that is the main ingredient in the excellent mens jumpers and women's twinsets (Smedley is the Bentley of British knitwear) that are its winter mainstays. For the summer, it uses cotton - from the the West Indies as well as Peru - to spin timeless lightweight pieces including long and short-sleeve polo shirts.

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Smedley has a modest but fervent customer base of men who do not mind the prices (even polo shirts rarely cost less than £100) or the fact that that fineness of gauge means that its garments, even correctly sized, sit closely on the wearers' body (which can either flatter, or not - depending on the body). Maclean is now wrangling with the prospect of how to expand his family business, and secure those 380 jobs as much as is possible. One option he's considering is to introduce an exterior logo, following the discovery of a Thirties Smedley golf collection that featured a jaybird motif. Next year marks the 100th anniversary of the company's first contract with a Japanese retailer - to produce a garment designed to be worn under kimonos in winter - so they are also planning a special micro-collection of ecru, indigo-dyed knitwear to celebrate it. But, says Maclean: "we've seen other companies that have attempted to find a new customer and abandoned their core in the process, and we're determined not to go down that route. I want to keep John Smedley relevant to the customers we already have." It's a difficult problem - and one that Pringle has recently been buffeted by following its only-middling efforts to focus on high fashion - and Maclean's instinct is probably the right one. John Smedley needs more men of certain means to discover its superior-to-anything else logoless basics, available in a different-every-day variety of colours. Those who do will never regret it.

Read more of Luke Leitch's columns

Need to Know
Get it at John Smedley, 24 Brook Street W1K 5DG; 020 7495 2222, johnsmedley.com

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