Made properly
Sustainability, without the superlatives
No brand that cuts new cloth is 'sustainable', ours included. What we can be is careful, transparent and improving — here is exactly what that means, and what we haven't solved yet.
The most sustainable garment is the one that stays in use. That conviction shapes N&N more than any certificate: we design slowly, cut from heavier cloth than the high street, and keep styles in the range for years so that nothing you buy from us is out of date by autumn. Everything else on this page — the fibres, the factories, the packaging — sits on top of that foundation.
Materials
Four fibres, chosen carefully
Organic cotton
GOTS-certified
Every cotton jersey piece — tees, polos, sweats — is made from cotton certified to the Global Organic Textile Standard, which covers not just how the fibre is grown but how it is processed, dyed and handled at every stage.
Merino wool
RWS-certified
Our merino is certified to the Responsible Wool Standard, which audits animal welfare and land management on the farms it comes from. Mulesed wool has never been in the range and never will be.
Recycled shells
GRS-certified
The outer fabrics on our parkas and shell jackets are woven from GRS-certified recycled polyamide and polyester. Recycled synthetics are not a perfect answer — see the honesty list below — but they beat virgin ones.
European linen
Flax grown in France & Belgium
Our linen is spun from flax grown in the coastal belt between Normandy and Flanders — a crop that needs no irrigation and little intervention — and woven in Portugal, close to our sewing partners.
Factories
A supply chain short enough to visit
Almost everything we sell is made in northern Portugal, in and around Guimarães: a circular-knitting mill for our jersey, a family knitwear mill for our merino, and a seventy-person sewing plant that has made our clothes since the first production run in 2019. Sampling and small UK runs happen ten minutes from our London studio.
We visit at least three times a year. The sewing plant holds SMETA certification and every partner operates under EU labour law, but we put more weight on the relationship than the paperwork: six years of working with the same people means problems surface in conversation, not in an annual audit.
You can read a longer account of the factories — who they are, what they make and what we check — in the Journal.
“The best audit is a long relationship. When you've worked with the same factory for six years, problems surface in conversation long before a checklist finds them.”
Packaging
Nothing you can’t recycle at the kerb
Your order arrives in an unbleached, FSC-certified recycled cardboard box or paper mailer, sealed with paper tape and packed with tissue rather than poly bags. Swing tags are recycled card on cotton string. All of it goes in your household recycling.
The one exception we haven’t eliminated: garments travel from Portugal in polythene transit bags, which protect them in bulk shipping. We collect and recycle these at the warehouse rather than sending them on to you, and we are trialling paper-based alternatives with our factories this year.
Circularity
Where we are, honestly
We are early on circularity, and we would rather say so than gesture at a take-back scheme that quietly ships clothes to landfill abroad. What exists today: care guides for every fibre, spare buttons with every garment that needs them, and a repairs inbox — email us a photo of a damaged N&N piece and we will either talk you through the fix, point you to a local repairer, or handle it ourselves at cost.
What we are working towards, without promised dates:
- A resale pilot for pre-worn N&N pieces, starting with knitwear and outerwear
- Mono-material construction on more styles, so garments are easier to recycle at end of life
- Publishing a full factory list once our newer relationships have matured
When one of these ships, it will appear here — and in the meantime, the most useful thing we can tell you is still the simplest: buy less, choose well, wash cold and learn to care for what you own.
Questions we haven’t answered?
Ask us anything about how our clothes are made — a real person in the studio reads every message.