When to book your winter woollens

Every winter a version of the same conversation happens. A shop calls in the second week of December, the first genuinely cold week, and asks what cardigans are left in a full size run. By then the answer is rarely the one anybody wants.

This is not a supply problem. It is a calendar problem, and it is worth understanding because it is entirely predictable.

Woollens are made to a season, not to demand. Mills run the winter line months before winter, allocate it, and move on. What reaches a wholesaler in August is broadly what exists for that season. Reorders happen, but they happen against what is left rather than against what is made, and the sizes that go first are the ones every shop needs most: the middle of the run.

So the practical rule is that your winter buying decision is an August decision, not a November one. We hold the woollen line from August precisely so a retailer can walk the floor while the run is still complete.

What that buys you is not just stock. It is the ability to choose. In August you are picking which shades suit your customer. In December you are taking what is available and hoping it is close enough.

If your shelves emptied of any one thing last winter, that is the item to name first this year. Tell us what ran out and we will show you what covers it while the run is still whole.