Atelier Larsen
Our cloth
We are a twelve-piece collection made from cloth woven at three mills. That is the whole company. Everything below is an attempt to say what that actually means, in numbers, rather than in adjectives.
Where the cloth comes from
Bergamo, Lombardy
Working with them since 2016
The wool-cashmere for the Halden, and the wool-viscose the Vega trouser is cut from.
A four-set spinning mill of about ninety people. They will not run under 400 metres, which is why our outerwear arrives in two drops a year rather than continuously.
Kortrijk, West Flanders
Working with them since 2018
Every linen on the site — the Norrland shirt at 165gsm, the Atlas chambray.
Flax grown within 200km of the mill, dew-retted in the field rather than in tanks. It is why the cloth softens in about six washes instead of thirty.
Hawick, Scottish Borders
Working with them since 2021
Lambswool for the Stille, and the wool-alpaca in the Orkney and the Sonder.
Five-gauge frames, and shoulders hand-linked by four people. A hand-linked shoulder takes about twenty minutes and is the reason the Orkney costs what it does.
Twelve pieces, twice a year. We would rather cut something than add to it.
How a piece gets made
We buy the cloth first. A mill will not weave 60 metres, so the minimum run decides how many coats exist before a pattern has been cut — roughly 180 of the Halden, fewer of the Sonder because alpaca comes in shorter runs.
Patterns are graded on three bodies rather than scaled from one. It is slower and it is the reason the size run stops at XL: past that the grade stops being a grade and becomes a guess.
Sampling takes four rounds. Nothing goes into production until a piece has been worn by someone here for a month, which is also how the Linden lost its sleeve lining — it was warm, and nobody wanted it.
What happens to the cloth we do not use.
A 400 metre run leaves between 20 and 40 metres on the roll once the marker is cut. That offcut is the accessories: the Linnea scarf is woven from the wool left after the Orkney, which is why it appears and disappears without notice.
What is left after that goes to a felting mill in Hawick and comes back as interlining. Nothing here is a zero-waste claim — it is simply cheaper to use the cloth than to store it.
- 3Mills we buy from
- 2Drops a year
- 400 mMinimum cloth run
- 12Pieces in the collection
Repairs and alterations
Altered free, once
Sleeve and hem length on anything tailored, within ninety days. Post it back and we return it in about two weeks.
Mended at any age
Moth holes, split seams, a lost corozo button. We charge for the work and not for the parts, and we will say if it is not worth doing.
Re-dyed rather than binned
A faded linen shirt can go back to Kortrijk and come out indigo. It costs about a third of a new one and it takes six weeks.
Taken back at the end
Send anything of ours you are finished with. It is felted into interlining, and you get 15% off the next thing.