King Charles' Dumfries-based charity The Prince’s Foundation debuts sustainable fashion range

Dumfries House-based The Prince’s Foundation has teamed up with the owner of high-end online fashion retailer Net-A-Porter to launch a sustainable luxury womenswear range that iconic Scots knitwear brand Johnstons of Elgin helped produce.

The 13-piece, ready-to-wear “responsible” capsule collection was crafted by the artisans in the Textile Training Centre at Dumfries House, where they undertook six months of intensive training in luxury small-batch production. They also learnt about the product-development process at Fashion Enter in London, and luxury knitwear manufacturing, as they designed four knitwear pieces, the only styles to be produced off-site by UK-based suppliers Johnstons of Elgin and Corgi.

Each piece in the collection, which is inspired by Highgrove Gardens, is embedded with a Digital ID that provides product insights, while half of the sales price is being donated to The Prince’s Foundation (the sustainability-focused charity led by King Charles that started out when he was Price of Wales) to support its training initiatives.

The initiative marks the culmination of the second edition of The Modern Artisan – Yoox Net-A-Porter (which owns Net-A-Porter) and The Prince’s Foundation’s flagship training programme that started out in 2019. The ten-month paid programme supports eight British and Italian graduates through the end-to-end process of designing, handcrafting, and bringing a more sustainable luxury collection to a global market.

King Charles with modern artisans Adam Benbarek and Emily Dey. Picture: Charlie Urmston.

Jacqueline Farrell, education director at The Prince’s Foundation at Dumfries House, said: “Seeing the artisans develop their skills over the course of The Modern Artisan has been a source of pride for everyone involved, and we can’t wait to see the impact they all make in the industry as they enter the next stage of their career.”

Alison Loehnis, interim chief executive at Yoox Net-A-Porter, said: “We are grateful for The Prince’s Foundation’s partnership and commitment to protecting heritage skills that are the essence of luxury.”