Kids Fashion

SOPHIE OCHERA KNITWEAR

I fell in love with the amazing Sophie Ochera knitwear as soon as I saw it. The handknitted soft jumpers and cardigans with fairisle yokes, evoked distant memories that stirred up a feeling of nostalgia that instantly captured me.

Sophie Ochera is originally from London and after graduating she moved straight to Paris to begin a career in textiles. A good friend gave her a knitting machine and it re-ignited her passion for knitting; something she had done by hand since childhood, having been taught by her grandmother.

sophie

After starting a family and moving to Normandy, Sophie began making colourful knitwear for her new baby boy as well as for family and friends and started her new venture of creating a line of beautiful knitted sweaters using traditional techniques in 100% natural fibres handknitted into modern shapes.

Sophie had always found mass produced knitwear so disappointing so using inspiration from her own 1980s childhood, folk costumes and textiles from around the world she has created a stunning range of pieces that sit within the clean modern aesthetic of today merging tradition with contemporary beautifully.

‘I love to create well-made, colourful and warm knitwear to brighten up the Normandy winter, that is practical and chic and I strive to make the kind of knitwear that you will want to keep and pass on for generations to come.’

Each sweater is made in pieces on a standard one-bed knitting machine, and brought together on a circular needle and finished off by hand, incorporating lots of different colours for a beautiful and unique circular fairisle yoke. It is then washed and ever-so-slightly felted, unifying all the wool fibres and colours together, and making the sweaters irresistibly soft, warm and itch-free.

sophieochera

The nature of handmade knitwear means that every piece is unique and slightly different to the last. Lots of Sophies sweaters use the fairisle technique – a technique which involves using different colours to create a design , which means behind the work ‘floats’ are created when a colour is unused at the front. Sophie loves the backside of fairisle knitting, and she hope you will agree that this, along with the irregularity of her sweaters, add to their hand-made charm.

Click here to visit the Sophie Ochera website.

women-knitwear

The popular ‘Marinière’ sweater is available for women as well.

Soft merino lambswool stripes in navy and ecru give way to a deep, intricately patterned Fairisle yoke, using an unusual mix of jewel-like colours. Small flashes of bright tangerine orange give this traditional technique an original and modern look.