When Huit Denim launches their new women’s jeans line in April,
someone will purchase a pair that the Princess of Wales worked on
during a visit to their factory.

Catherine travelled through West Wales to spotlight
textiles manufacturers, and her final stop was in Cardigan to
visit the sustainable Hiut Denim jean company and learn about their
sustainable practices and premium-quality products.

The company focuses on training local artisans and creating
sustainable denim, and according to Kensington Palace, the company
offers both free jeans for life and a take-back programme where old
and unwanted jeans are turned into repaired jeans and resold.

Catherine met with Hiut Denim’s chief executive officer, Johann
Von Loeper, upon arrival to learn how the company is bringing back
jean production to a town that was renowned for it for four decades
before production left the town. In its heyday, Cardigan was
producing 35,000 pairs of jeans each week and employed 400 artisans
before all production moved offshore.

Hiut Denim opened in 2011 and restarted the tradition of
jean-making. In a blog post shared on Hiut Denim’s website, Von Loeper wrote that
the visit felt like special recognition for their work,
“something we have always said is at the heart of Hiut; a
commitment to craft and to keeping the skills of British textiles
and design alive.”

Von Loeper walked Catherine through every step of jean
manufacturing, from design to cutting to sewing. At the cutting
table, the future queen met Claudio, a cutter with over 60 years of
experience who is training workers who started one month ago. He
guided her through some of the qualities of cutting that he has
become an expert in and let the royal cut her own straight-leg
jeans for a new design Hiut Denim is launching in April.

According to Von Loeper, “The princess did an expert job
under the supervision of Claudio and lucky for her, it passed
quality control and will actually form a part of one of our
Jeans.”

Catherine
revealed that she’s tried cutting her own clothes before, but that
she hasn’t been that adventurous in the past, telling Claudio,
“The most adventurous I got was making a pair of pyjamas, and I
don’t know where they have gone now.”

Catherine then moved on to the sewing room where she met one of
its longest-standing employees and three trainees who are just
starting out in denim manufacturing. She sewed a pocket that later
wound up on a pair of men’s jeans gifted to Prince William, which
she promised he would love.

Summing up Catherine’s visit, Von Loeper wrote, “As the
owner of Hiut, the day left me immensely proud. Proud of the team,
proud of the idea that skills can be passed down, and glad that
someone in a position to champion British textiles and fashion
brands could see, up close, what we do and why it matters. The
visit was a reminder that the way we make things shapes the world
we live in.”

Kensington Royal shared on its own social media: “Meeting the team at Huit
Denim to learn about their design process, production journey and
commitment to sustainability.

“From pattern cutting to sewing and repair, their ethos of
buying less and buying better shows how skill, creativity and
responsibility can sit side by side.”