THERE can't be many sparsely populated islands which are important centres of style but Inis Meain, off the coast of Galway, can lay claim to being a major fashion player in this country.
One of the three Aran islands, Inis Meain has less than 250 occupants, some 10 per cent of them employed in the knit wear industry run by Tarlach de Blacam and his wife Aine.
Inis Meain Knitting Company Ltd is one of Ireland's fashion secrets, at least as far as the domestic market is concerned. There is a handful of outlets here, but the majority of its business is overseas more than 40 per cent of all garments are sold to Japan, while Germany, Italy and the United States are also major buyers. Ever since its establishment in 1978, the company has focused on developing a strong export demand. I always made Japan and Europe my targets," says Tarlach de Blacam who spent all last week selling next spring's collection at the Pitti Uomo fair in Florence.
De Blacam insists he never planned to create a major company. "I aimed to be small and exclusive, targeting top quality specialty stores." Nevertheless, Inis Meain now has an annual turnover of £1 million and produces an average 20,000 garments each year. Even more impressively and almost uniquely for the Irish knitwear industry, the business produces an entirely new collection each season. Inis Meain therefore has to create fresh designs twice a year, which is why so much of de Blacam's time is spent travelling around the world with a collection of samples.
When Inis Meain knitwear was first established, many of the garments were handmade by the six workers employed. At that time, Tarlach de Blacam was manager of the island's co-operative society which he'd helped set up after moving from the mainland in the early 1970s. It was only after he resigned his position that de Blacam and his wife, who's a native of Inis Meain, decided to take on the knitwear side of the co-operative and develop it into a more substantial business. Having bought the company in 1985 they started to invest in new technology and now there are four large machines (each worth approximately £120,000) working 24 hours a day to meet demand.
Inis Meain Knitting Company's factory is an extraordinary sight on the island. Surrounded by tiny fields with their elaborately constructed limestone walls, the long white building contains a remarkable assortment of expensive machinery that hums as it rapidly turns out each garment section by section. Once the separate pieces have all been produced, they are then stitched together by a worker before being despatched to Tokyo or New York. A technician is employed to programme the machinery for each pattern his job means that wastage and faults are down to a mere five per cent of all items far lower than when knitwear was being manufactured by hand. Careful programming allows the machines to tackle elaborate patterns and complex shaping. There is now almost no scissor cutting involved in the work, except for some necklines which still have to be formed by hand.
"People always say that our sweaters are so expensive," Tarlach de Blacam says, "but no one ever thinks about the amount of effort we've put into our product development." Aside from the cost of machinery, creating a new collection every six months adds to the eventual price as does the yarns employed alpaca is a favourite for autumn/winter while during spring/summer linen and linen/silk are used. All of which explains why the average retail price for an Inis Meain sweater is £150. For this, the purchaser gets a well produced garment made from a top quality yarn, which pays homage to the traditional Aran sweater without being a slavish or stale copy of the old form.
NOT that Inis Meain knitwear can be positioned at the radical end of the fashion spectrum. While the colours and forms change each season, they retain a certain relaxed familiarity and are never too demanding of the wearer. Colours for the season ahead, for example, have plenty of autumnal orange and rich brown tones or else come in long established favourites such as black or charcoal like to use the word classics,"
explains Tarlach de Blacam. "I prefer to use the phrase `old friends'." That should apply just as much to the line of clothing that Inis Meain has been gradually introducing over the past few years. Again, nothing startling is included in either the men's or women's range instead, there's a strong emphasis on natural fabrics including de Blacam's favourite, linen and simple shapes. But as with the company's sweaters, the clothes don't overlook the merits of advanced technology. For next year, for example, some of the women's pieces will be made in a new stretch linen allowing for more body hugging shapes.
It's obviously this marriage of the traditional and the new which has made Inis Meain such a success on the international market. At the moment, Tarlach de Blacam says, he's struggling to meet demand for his product, with all machines working at full capacity. "If I had more workers, I could increase production by 25 per cent," he remarks, even though such expansion would militate against his own Small Is Beautiful philosophy.
Whatever happens, given the business's ever burgeoning popularity abroad, it's certainly time for more people at home to recognise the merits of Inis Meain knitwear.