Hiutis a specialist jeans manufacturer in Aberteifi (Cardigan), Wales. They make a great product, which we will talk about shortly. Buttheir storyand one that captures much of the classic, heritage-oriented menswear movement that has emerged over the past 20 years.
Until the 1990s, the Aberteifi factory produced 35,000 pairs of jeans a week, with 400 employees. Their biggest customer was Marks & Spencer and as you can imagine, the denim business ruled the town.
That all ended in 2002, when M&S moved production overseas. The factory had been trying to cut costs and run successfully for many years – this was not manual labor – but in the end it could not make jeans cheap enough.
In 2011, with an idea that (in retrospect) was common at the time, David and Claire Hieatt founded a new company to start production again. It was small, but they were able to rehire a few people and get attention from a world hungry for craft-based startups.
Hiut had a loyal following, and had some very notable moments such as when Megan, Duchess of Sussexput on their pants. But they are always working slowly from time to time trying new ideas, and during the Covid they got into a financial crisis, being forced to ask customers to invest in 2024.
One of those, and eventually the full owners, was the Von Loeper family. Johann Von Loeper now runs the company, and has started to do more professionally – turning it into a full-fledged product.
If you’re the type of person who appreciates small, product-focused makers, it’s easy to be skeptical of the idea of doing work like this as a professional, but it makes a difference in so many ways that we don’t really appreciate it.
The image on the website is much improved for example, making the fit easier to understand. And the overall fit was re-evaluated, and presented as a single range instead of a single output. On the women’s side, Johann has had more than 50 customers try on different fits before refining and confirming them.
“Women’s jeans in the past were straight and fitted, they didn’t work for that many people,” says Johann. “We have worked to create a better range of different body shapes.
“Overall, the brand was created in the image of David and Claire, which was a business philosophy approach, more about the story than the product and the style. We wanted to update the company to show that we can not only make high quality jeans, but also design high quality.”
In my opinion, the biggest design problem they had – and many small denim companies have these days – was washing.
When values and authenticity first became mainstream in the 2010s, the idea of buying raw selvedge denim, which was uncomfortable and the wrong size to begin with, was okay because it meant a personal, personable product in the long run.
But people have little patience for that now, and fashions have moved to medium blue jeans and light blue, which takes years to achieve when it starts from green.
This is a problem for the artisan, because washing blue jeans to get them to those light blues is another form of production, which requires different machines and skill sets. Some, likeBlackhorse Lane in Londoninvest in their equipment. Hiut started working with himLaundRewho are technological but who bathe in sustainable ways, in accordance with the Hiut philosophy.
Hiut has just introduced their first washed jean – a pale blue calledSummer Wash Selvedge– and they plan to launch mid-blue at the end of July.
Denim washing involves a conscious design choice, and Hiut has found a plain version without strong fading and whisking. This brings them closer to other mainstream brands and away from repro productssuch as Full Countwho tend to seek more extreme versions, recreate classic pairs.
“We wanted to do that because we want customers to find their own fades over time on jeans,” said Johann.
Most of the range at Hiut was also relaunched last year, with a special focus on wide and high fit: which is very compatible with tailoring styles, interestingly, in their opinion.
Lucas and I tried several models, and he settled on a wide rangeGeraldwhile I like the taperedBenjamin.
I’ve been experimenting with wide leg jeans lately – likeRubato Lot 2again133 Bryceland– and I was interested in trying Jerald again, but found it too wide for me. Lucas however, who is wider than me and usually wears a wider fit, liked the Jerald. He did it in ecru denim.
The Benjamin I got is in between the two Bryceland models (133 and 133S) in terms of leg line, but a little straighter than the ones that go through the thigh. Thigh and seat room is a thingI need specialand in fact this Hiut model has more space than their previous offerings. The Hiut is also the higher of the two in rear height, which I don’t find I need much but I know some will appreciate it.
Hiut is known for some colorful details on the jeans, such as a red fly button with an owl logo, and an unfinished red cord at the waist that shows the last thing the maker did to the jeans.
Personally I am not a fan of extravagant details, but it is possible to make jeans without them – and apparently customers are more likely to request special versions using other colors, to put their personal stamp on them.
I took a size 33/32, which is my most normal size. Lucas took it38/38which is the size he expected her to go with, although looking back she said she could have gone with a 36 waist, she was a bit in the middle.
Alongside the new blue wash, Hiut (pronounced ‘high-utt’ by the way) will be introducing a denim jacket for the fall, and some threads on their existing cuts.
“The plan is not to expand too much, but just to offer a few more interesting things that customers have asked about over the years,” said Johann.
I hope they make it work. It would be nice if the next chapter of this story was about the successful transfer of Hiut to a new hand, which added something important to the long-term survival of the production here.
They already have one good sign. “Just after Christmas, I received an email from this unknown address, asking for my phone number,” said Johann. “I wasn’t sure if I was going to give it to you at first, to be honest, but I did, and 20 minutes later I got a call from Kate’s assistant secretary, the Princess of Wales!”
Kate, it turned out, was planning to visit British manufacturers, particularly textiles, to try to support them – something that King Charles has always been amazing at.
Johann says: “One of the best moments was when he met Claudio, the barber, who is now 76 years old and has been cutting here since he was 16.“He is now in charge of training – we have five students we are training at the moment – so I hope he helps build the future of denim here as well.”