Our story
It started with one coat that would not wear out.
Our founder spent a decade buying, altering and eventually giving up on womenswear that looked right for a season and felt wrong by the third wash. So she made one coat properly — double-faced Italian wool, hand-set horn buttons, a lining chosen for how it slides over a sweater.
Friends asked for one. Then a shop asked for twelve. Nine years later we still work the same way: a small team, forty garments to a run, and a rule that nothing leaves the studio until we would wear it ourselves.
- Designed, cut and finished at our Albuquerque studio in New Mexico.
- Mills in Italy, Scotland and Japan that we visit in person each year.
- Offcuts donated to two fashion programmes at local colleges.
2017
The first run of forty
21
Pieces in the permanent collection
100%
Natural fibres, no exceptions
14,800
Garments made to date
A note from the founder
“Buy less. Buy better. Then keep it.”
I would rather you owned nine pieces you love than ninety you tolerate. That belief shapes everything here — the cloth we choose, the runs we keep small, and the alterations we offer for a year after you buy.
If you are ever unsure about a fit or a fabric, write to us. You will get a reply from someone who has actually handled the garment, not a script.
Amara Whitfield
Founder & Creative Director
What we hold to
Three principles, applied to everything.
Made to be altered
Generous seam allowances, stable cloth and simple construction — so a tailor can take it in, let it out or shorten it years from now.
Traceable fibre
We know the mill, the mill knows the farm. No anonymous blends, no plastic pretending to be wool.
Honest quantities
Forty to a run, restocked only when the cloth allows. Selling out is a feature, not a marketing tactic.
How it is made
From bolt to box, in four steps.
Cloth first
We start at the mill, not the sketchbook. A fabric earns a place in the collection before a single pattern is drafted.
Pattern & toile
Every style is cut in calico and fitted on three body types before it is cut in the real cloth.
Small-run making
Forty garments, sewn by a team of six in our studio. French seams, hand-finished hems and horn or corozo buttons.
Checked, then sent
Each piece is measured, pressed and tissue-wrapped by hand, with a care card written for that specific cloth.
Milestones
Nine years, measured in garments.
2017
The first coat
Forty Marlowe coats are cut in a borrowed studio in Albuquerque and sell out in eleven days.
2019
The studio opens
We take the lease on Studio 4, hire our first two machinists, and begin fitting every style on three body types.
2022
Fibre transparency
Every cloth is traced back to its mill and published on each product page, down to the farm where possible.
2025
Repairs for life
The alterations promise extends from one year to the lifetime of the garment, for the original owner.
Responsibility
The unglamorous work of making less.
We do not run seasonal sales to clear stock, because we do not make stock to clear. What we do instead is smaller and duller: buy less cloth, cut it more carefully, repair what wears, and pay the people who sew it a wage they can live on.
- Living wage for all six studio machinists
- Recycled and recyclable packaging only
- Offcuts returned to two college programmes
- Deadstock used before new cloth is bought
Visit the studio
See the cloth in person.
We are at 117 Stanford Dr Se, Albuquerque. The studio is open to the public monday – friday, 10am – 7pm — no appointment needed, and the kettle is always on.