Located off Ireland’s western coast, 28 nautical miles from Galway, Inis Meáin (pronounced IN-ish MAAN) isn’t the sort of place you stumble upon by accident. Nor is it where you’d expect to find a state-of-the-art operation producing some of the most covetable—and frequently copied—sweaters on the market.
Founder Tarlach de Blácam didn’t come here to make crewnecks. A scholar of Irish and Celtic languages at Trinity College in Dublin, he arrived in the late 1960s to improve his fluency and wound up marrying a local, Áine Ní Chonghaile. In 1976, to make a living in a bleak economic climate, the couple set up a knitting cooperative.
“Ireland was about 50 years behind the rest of the world, and this island was about 50 years behind Ireland,” says the de Blácams’ son, Ruairí, the company’s managing director. What it did have was plenty of talent skilled at making Aran sweaters, named for the trio of isles in Galway Bay. Once largely utilitarian, the distinctive ivory cable knits were traditionally made here from undyed sheep’s wool, densely woven to protect fishermen from the elements. At the time, cheap versions were flooding tourist shops in Cork and Dublin, crowding out the real deal. Inis Meáin reclaimed the island’s heritage and ensured that a generation of craftspeople wouldn’t have to leave home to find work.
Among the firm’s most striking designs was a riff on the classic Aran that used plaited, colorful two-tone yarns—the better to highlight the pattern’s twisted-rope motif. Imitators abounded, prompting the de Blácams to apply for a patent, which was granted in 1999, though even that couldn’t prevent a knockoff from surfacing at the biannual Italian menswear trade show Pitti Uomo in 2004. It wasn’t long until the Patented Aran earned a permanent place in Ireland’s National Museum.
Though the company has never shied away from using technology to enhance its capabilities, it has stuck to small-batch production. “Our scale is ridiculous,” says Ruairí. “As in ridiculously small.” Tight supply, along with palatable pricing—the most expensive design, a cashmere zip-up, goes for about $975—means these pieces are notorious for selling out quickly. So when you see an Inis Meáin knit you like, such as the Patented Aran here and on the following pages, grab it.
-
1. Landscape Inspiration
Image Credit: Jamie Ferguson The company has long drawn inspiration from nature—a particularly striking sunrise might result in five or six colors of yarn that inform the collection. “We’re on an island surrounded by blue seas, blue sky, and gray limestone rock,” says Ruairí, so plum, orange, and red versions are common.
-
2. Combining Old and New
Image Credit: Jamie Ferguson Referencing archival imagery of traditional garments and weaving techniques is an essential part of the design process. Still, the firm embraces the latest technology to guarantee consistency in its items and speed up production. Whereas hand knits will vary slightly according to each knitter’s approach, the machines standardize the tension, resulting in a far more predictable outcome.
-
3. Pattern Modification
Image Credit: Jamie Ferguson Many newfangled commercial knitting systems come preloaded with patterns, which plenty of other companies are happy to use. “We try to manipulate the machines to our own unique way of doing things,” says Marie-Thérèse de Blácam, Ruairí’s wife and the company’s head of marketing. Inis Meáin programs the machines to follow its own proprietary designs, which are informed by historic precedent.
-
4. Color Choice
Image Credit: Jamie Ferguson The wool in this sweater comes from Italy, where a yarn spinner translates the desired color palette into spools. The Patented Aran requires six cones of wool, so the machine setup alone can take an hour.
-
5. Two-tone Effect
Image Credit: Jamie Ferguson Due to the complexity of the plaited Aran pattern, multiple machines are needed to achieve the signature two-tone effect across the sweater’s front, back, sleeves, and trim.
-
6. Dual Effort
Image Credit: Jamie Ferguson A circular linking machine holds the sweater’s sections together while a worker aligns the pieces stitch by stitch, creating a clean line. “It’s quite intensive in terms of the hand skills required for the cables to match up perfectly,” says Marie-Thérèse.
-
7. Observance
Image Credit: Jamie Ferguson The sweater is placed onto an illuminated form, allowing workers to easily identify and repair any holes, snags, or other irregularities.
-
8. Wash and Felting
Image Credit: Jamie Ferguson The company knits with unwashed yarns, so the finished product is sent through highly specialized washers (using purified water) before it’s dried, enabling the natural felting process, which condenses the fibers. This transition from a loose to a tight knit—the garments emerge from the dryers at half their original size—helps them keep their shape.
-
9. Edge Smoothing
Image Credit: Jamie Ferguson The sweater is steamed by hand to smooth and flatten the hems and linked edges. Steaming also prepares the surface for the addition of the brand’s label, which is sewn on by hand.
-
10. Final Measuring
Image Credit: Jamie Ferguson Though specific sizing is programmed at the outset and the washing process has been distilled to a science, the team, charmingly, still relies on a good old-fashioned tape to check that each sweater measures up.
