After recognising that her passion for social textiles outweighed her love of fashion, Emily James chose to study Surface Pattern Design at Swansea Met, graduating in 2007. Over the following years Emily collaborated on women’s wear clothing range, Llynfi, exploring the woollen industry in Wales, both current and historic, and become increasingly passionate about using Welsh flannel and our remaining local mills. In 2019 Emily conceived of the Carpenter & Cloth partnership and began her own clothing collection.
Carpenter & Cloth represents the coming together of two fundamental human needs: clothing and shelter. Using the indigenous materials of Wales – local wool and timber - Carpenter & Cloth offer clothing and structures that integrate our lives with the land that holds us.
Emily James, the clothier of the partnership, makes unisex pieces that are designed from her experience of life on a Welsh hillside.
“Wearing this local wool from the hills around me connects me to the people who have gone before, working the land in their flannel shirts, weaving cloth in their lean-to sheds, herding their flocks to summer pastures. It also gives me hope for the future, knowing that my warm gilet allows me to burn less firewood, that it has been produced locally and in respect for the people and the land, and that, finally, at the end of my garment’s life it will completely biodegrade, returning to the soil from which it came.”
