Inside Our Local Knitwear Production with Sompunt
Sompunt has been at the heart of Pamuuc knitwear since we began. Based in L'Espluga Calba, a small town in Lleida, Catalonia, they have been knitting for over 50 years, since 1969. What makes them irreplaceable to us is not just proximity to Barcelona, but their integrated structure. Knitting, linking, washing, finishing, and quality control all happen under one roof, in the same building. That means when we ask a technical question about how a yarn will behave after a specific wash protocol, the answer comes from people who can walk across the floor and check the machines themselves. There is no gap between departments, no handoff where information gets lost. This is what ethical knitwear production looks like to us: transparency, accountability, and the ability to trace every decision back to its source.
Why knitwear is technically different
Most people think of knitwear the same way they think of woven garments. You pick a fabric, cut panels, sew them together, and you have a garment. Knitwear works differently, and that difference matters more than you might expect.
In knitwear, every panel is knitted to shape. That means before we ever link (join) a single seam, the dimensions of each piece, the front panel, the back, each sleeve, are determined by the knitting machine itself. The tension of the yarn as it feeds through the needles, the speed of the machine, the gauge (the number of stitches per centimetre), all of these affect the final width, length, and how the piece will behave.
A change of even one click on the machine tension can shift a chest measurement by a centimetre. That sounds small until you are trying to fit a sweater. The tension also affects how the yarn sits in the stitch, which changes the hand feel of the knit, its drape, and how it will recover after washing. A rib, say, a collar or cuff, is engineered to recover to a specific dimension after stretching and washing. Get the tension wrong, and the recovery is off.
Washing behaviour is another variable that does not exist in cut and sew production. Different knit structures can shrink or relax differently depending on water temperature, detergent chemistry, and how the piece is handled during the wash cycle. This is why we wash test pieces before production. You cannot predict these behaviours on a spreadsheet. You have to knit a swatch, wash it, and then adjust.
Who Sompunt is
Sompunt is a family business that has spent five decades learning how to knit well. They occupy a converted textile mill in L'Espluga Calba, about 90 kilometres west of Barcelona, close enough that we can drive there and be looking at samples within a couple of hours.
What sets them apart is their integrated model. They own the knitting machines. They have their own linking department, where panels are joined and loose ends are secured. They run their own washing facility, where every batch is treated according to the needs of that yarn and structure. They have finishing staff who press and inspect every piece, and a quality control team embedded throughout the process.
Because all of these stages happen in one place, under one management structure, problems are caught early and traced to their source. If a batch of sweaters comes out of the wash with unexpected shrinkage, the washing team can immediately talk to the knitting team about tension, to the linking team about how tightly seams were joined. That conversation happens in real time, not through emails sent back and forth between subcontractors. The feedback loop is closed.
Yarn selection and gauge decisions
For our winter knitwear, we use extrafine Merino wool with a micron count under 18 microns. That is a technical specification, but it matters because it determines how the garment will feel against skin. Coarser wools, anything above 25 microns, can feel scratchy. Extrafine Merino is soft enough that many people can wear it directly without a layer underneath.
But softness is not the only reason we chose extrafine. The fibre also holds colour beautifully and has excellent dimensional stability, which means the garment will hold its shape wash after wash.
Once we have selected the yarn, we work with Sompunt to choose the gauge, the density of stitches, measured in stitches per centimetre. A tighter gauge creates a denser, more substantial fabric; a looser gauge creates something more open and drapey. Sompunt's gauges are chosen to give the knitwear body and structure while keeping it light and breathable. These decisions are made collaboratively, drawing on their 50 years of institutional knowledge about how specific yarn categories behave in production.
How a Pamuuc knit is developed, from swatch to production
Our development process for every new knit follows the same steps. It is slow, and deliberately so.
Swatch and test: We begin with a swatch: a small sample knitted in the yarn and structure we are considering. This swatch is washed and then measured before and after. We check how much it shrinks, how the texture changes and whether the colour deepens or fades. This step is essential. It is the only way to know if our assumptions about a yarn are correct.
Pilot and fit review: Once the swatch passes, we move to a pilot batch, usually five to ten pieces in a single size, knitted on the production machines using the settings planned for the full run. We wash them with the same protocol we will use later, then we wear them and ask for fit feedback from different body shapes. Does the length feel right? Do the sleeves sit where they should? Is the body width comfortable? If something is wrong at this stage, we fix it before moving to production.
Production and quality check: Once the pilot passes, we move to production. Every piece is knitted to the same precise specifications, washed in the same way, and inspected by hand before it ships. Sompunt's quality control team checks for consistency in dimensions, tension issues, and any irregularities in the knit structure. Any piece that falls outside the standard goes back to be fixed or, if it cannot be repaired, is removed from the batch.
What keeping production local makes possible
Distance is expensive in fashion supply chains. When a factory is on the other side of the world, every problem becomes a crisis. A question about yarn behaviour takes days to answer. A fit issue discovered during pilot production might mean waiting weeks for revised samples.
Because Sompunt is 90 kilometres away, we can visit in the morning and have answers by afternoon. If a pilot batch has a problem, a sleeve length that is off by a centimetre, a wash protocol that needs adjustment, we can fix it before the next run and still be in the window for production. This proximity allows us to be precise in ways that distant production cannot support. It also means that everyone involved in making a Pamuuc knit understands that they are making something for a specific customer, not a generic product for a distant brand. That awareness shows in the work.
What we are still working on
We are not claiming to have solved every problem in ethical knitwear production. Yarn level traceability is something we are actively working towards. We know the specifications of the Merino yarn we use, and we are building deeper relationships with yarn suppliers to document more of the journey from fibre origin to final yarn construction.
Finishing chemistry is another area. When garments are finished, washed, pressed, treated to improve certain properties, various chemicals are used. We are documenting these processes in detail and looking for ways to reduce chemical use without compromising garment quality.
Packaging is the third. Our packaging is recyclable and minimal, but we are exploring alternatives that would further reduce environmental impact. These are conversations we are having with Sompunt alongside us.
If you want to understand more about how we think about yarn and care, read our Merino yarn and care guide. For a fuller picture of where we source and how we work, visit our transparency page.
To see the same local production logic in a current product, start with the Linen Shirt. Different fabric, same insistence on named production and controlled batches.
