Stock. It’s a funny word when you think about it. Look it up in a dictionary and it says ‘noun’ – meaning ‘goods or merchandise kept on the premises of a shop or warehouse.’ In short, stuff.
In our case, behind said ‘stuff’ is a long chain of brilliant people and sheep, a lot of time and an incredible amount of skill.
It starts with a connection to the land. The sheep and the farmers. There’s a cycle. It’s nature. The sheep need to grow wool. They need to be sheared. ‘When will you re-stock?’ is often a case of ‘when the sheep have grown more wool.’ We work alongside nature’s cycle.
But there’s also another part of our stock story. When you’re small, working with the highest quality wool, spinners and makers, it takes a long time to make things. It can take just as long to ‘re-stock’ something as it does to create from scratch.
Sometimes our knitters are booked up over a year in advance. A testament to how good they are.
At other times, we'd have to buy such a huge quantity of wool in advance to be able to re-stock in the near future, and we're just not in a position to do that as we grow organically.
Sadly, this means we can’t ‘re-stock‘ every piece of knitwear. The traditional ‘retail model’ is still built on volume - make lots, reduce the price when you can’t sell it all and if you still have ‘stock’ left after…well, we’ve all heard the stories of leftover stock being burnt or just put into landfill.
We don’t want to play that game.
When we launch a new piece, we’ve bought just the right amount of fibre to make that batch. In the case of the HARDY, which sold out in record time, not only was there no more wool for a ‘re-stock’ but because the process and knitting techniques involved, while beautiful, were so complicated and slow, we’ve had to have a rethink and are sketching away for a HARDY 2.0.
Sometimes we have to make a tough call not to re-stock. We can't do everything and we'd like to be around for a long time.
We want to learn from you. To make tweaks to perfect things, to listen to your feedback when something isn’t quite right, so that we can continue to create items that will bring you joy over the years.
Natural fibres traceable right back to the sheep. Transparency at every step. Quality and value. Zero waste. Every piece going to a loved home, to become part of your story.
This is so much more than just ‘stock’.
So that leads to me this link - it will take you to the styles we love of which there are just a few left and which we won’t be replenishing again this year. We’re not saying they’re gone forever, but for now this is the last chance to snap these editions up.
We hope this honest note goes some way to explain why sometimes we just can't re-stock everything.
Very best always, from the studio,
x Rachel
PS. If you see something that’s no longer available, we know that can be frustrating. Please do drop Sarah a line - hello@navygrey.co - and she can add you to our waiting list. If that item is then returned or we find a sample that’s almost perfect that we can part with, we’ll be sure to let you know.
