How Ancient Knitwear Practices Can Help Shape Contemporary Sustainability
CFC Member Spotlight: Meredith Noles of Noles Studio
Author and interviewer: Stella Hertantyo
As the founder of the knitwear design consultancy Noles Studio, Meredith Noles combines years of industry expertise with a passion for crafting dynamic knitwear designs and tailored strategies that elevate fashion brands' assortments and storytelling. With a focus on luxe artisanal techniques and sustainability, her services empower brands to expand into knitwear or refine their current offerings through a comprehensive and client-centered approach.
Meredith’s journey began at a custom boot and saddle shop in Texas, igniting her passion for handcrafted quality. She honed her expertise in Florence, Italy, under a textile designer for luxury brands like Gucci and Ferragamo, before earning degrees in Studio Art and Fashion Design from Parsons School of Design. In New York, she designed knitwear for esteemed brands and has experience overseeing all categories from fully fashioned knits to structured tailoring.
I interviewed Meredith in the Conscious Fashion Collective Membership as part of our Member Spotlight interview series.
Below are some of the highlights from the conversation, including:
How Meredith helps her clients create “future heirlooms”,
The value of incorporating ancient knitwear techniques into contemporary design,
And why storytelling is so important for ethical design.
What was the moment you knew you wanted to start your consultancy, Noles Studio?
I already knew I wanted to start my consultancy when I was working my first job. After graduating high school, I realized that having a job means being a problem solver. So I was itching to solve problems during my first job.
I noticed that there were lots of problems in the fashion industry, but I could also see that there were many solutions. I watched brands struggle to find those solutions and spend copious amounts of money in the process.
I fell into knitwear by accident. I didn’t study it in school, but I have always loved art, artisanal skills, and textile design. When I came across knitwear, I realized that there's so much experimentation that happens when you’re creating a textile from the ground up. Every single time you make a sweater you're starting with a swatch and yarn. You're playing with tension, color, fibers, how you manipulate that into a stitch, and play with artwork for every single style. It was a love affair that took me by surprise.
Between seeing all these challenges that brands were facing and my love for knitwear design, I wondered if there was a way for me to help brands who didn’t have space to hire a knitwear designer or wanted to reenergize their knitwear team by making their product development process more efficient and sustainable.
Finally the stars aligned and I started my consultancy a year ago. It has been amazing to combine that creativity and practicality and hold hands with founders and with brands, to make strong collections, or introduce knitwear as a new category.
What are your favorite fibers to work with and their main sustainability benefits?
I recently learned that wool is one of the top fibers for recycling because the staple length of the fiber means that it can last up to five lifespans through recycling.
At the moment, baby alpaca wool is a fiber that I love. People often think of cashmere as the pinnacle of luxury, but alpacas have an incredibly soft fiber too.
I love baby alpaca because I get to work with Peruvian artisans who cultivate the fiber and have an amazing supply chain. They work with herders who still live in the Andes mountains and preserve their migration patterns while herding in a way that is regenerative to the land. Alpacas don't have hooves like cows or sheep have hooves, they have soft toenails. Their toenails aerate the ground and help with soil regeneration.
The Peruvian Government has also worked to protect this whole ecosystem. When you see all of these different levels, from the Indigenous herder to the government and artisans, all holding hands to protect this supply chain, you realize that ethical design runs so much deeper than just using specific fabrics and certifications.
You help your clients create what you call “future heirlooms”. What is the significance of this phrase to you?
I work with so many different aesthetics and client needs. So I needed to create a North Star for myself that captured exactly what my vision was.
I’m helping people create future heirlooms. These are garments that have longevity through a holistic balance of fiber choice and construction. You can use the nicest fiber, but if the tension is off, it’s going to pill and get lumpy quickly.
We talk a lot about timeless design, but timeless doesn't have to mean minimal. There’s a particular aesthetic that comes with a lot of sustainability spaces which has never felt applicable to me or many of the people that I know that are interested in this space.
When I think about “timelessness”, I define it as having a strong point of view. When I'm thrifting, I'm going to thrift that funky 70s blouse with that pointed collar, not because it's traditionally timeless, but because it has a point of view. That point of view gives it longevity. This is also what informs how I help my clients with storytelling.
What kind of ancient techniques do you explore in your knitwear work, and how do you match this with a contemporary approach?
There are so many ancient knitwear techniques — one of my favorites is crochet. I love the versatility of crochet because it allows me to be creative, playing with shapes and stitches that feel modern.
You can find crochet everywhere, but often it’s mislabeled and not truly crochet. This is because crochet is done by hand — and can only be done by hand. Yet currently there are large factories that are industrialized that can create lookalikes.
Another ancient technique that I love working with is natural dyeing. It’s a bit harder to get brands to buy into this technique, because they often want to do bulk dyeing. But it’s possible and some fibers are more receptive to natural dyes. It’s so important, because if you think about your skin as your largest organ, you shouldn’t be putting toxic chemicals on it.
Natural dye has so much beauty and so much nuance to it. For the right brand that wants to tell a certain story, I think it makes a lot of sense.
What are your favorite places to look for knowledge and inspiration?
I have an artistic sensibility and I’m very tactile. So a lot of my research is analog. I go to public libraries, museums, and fashion archives. My eyes are always open and everything I do is research, in a way.
For example, I went on a road trip to Maine and I stopped at a random Historical Society. There were these amazing quilting books that were rooted in the community there, and I learned a lot about a certain type of upcycling that they were doing — without that term because these books were so old.
I live in a posture of curiosity and general observance. If I see someone in a garment with an interesting drape, I make note of it. If I’m at the thrift store, I’m not only going to find clothes but also to observe unusual constructions and what people have thrown away.
Why is storytelling so important for ethical design?
Storytelling is an entry point to start normalizing ethical fashion. At their core, I think that most people don’t want to partake in fashion systems that are exploitative or harmful. The issue is that this is what they have the easiest access to. This is where storytelling becomes an important medium for education, even if people can’t change the way they buy immediately.
Through storytelling, people are opened up to alternative options. You can learn about how artisan collectives are an alternative to large factories. There are places where women can stay at home with their children and have economic agency by knitting a sweater.
Storytelling also sheds light on the work that sustainable brands are doing. It’s not the easy choice and it’s not the cheap choice. So when I work with brands that are focused on intentionality, I use stories to highlight this work. This isn’t only through words, but also through styling and editorial content. Storytelling isn’t limited to a single medium.
What is your approach to helping your clients balance logistics factors and sustainability factors to reach a price point that feels fair, reflective of their brand, and accessible to the right customer?
Firstly, I only work with vetted manufacturers where I know they treat their employees well and the artisans are paid at minimum a fair wage. It has to be livable and it has to be humane. They have to have access to things that we all want from our workplace like breaks and fairness.
If you want to work with a manufacturer that might give you cheaper prices because they're exploiting their labor force, I'm not your girl. I start with that baseline of ethics. This is a non-negotiable fee, because it’s a built-in labor cost. But from there, there are levers that we can play with in design and when we're sourcing our fibers that can make a garment more affordable.
For example, sweaters are measured in weight. Weight is determined by the size and length of the yarn. So we can tweak elements to make your sweater weigh less with tension, larger gauge, or less ply of yarn.
We can also experiment with order quantity. If you increase your order quantity, you can get a lower price. That’s what the massive brands do. They make 100,000 units, which is why they can sell it for so cheap. But if you increase your minimum order quantity slightly, this can decrease the cost. To make this work, I help my clients design garments that they love and styles that they believe in so that they can sell through their orders.
You have to take a holistic view. I’ll never play with the ethics lever, because I’m unmoving on treating people well. I’ll also never go below a certain fiber threshold for quality. But once you have these baselines in place, there is still room to play.
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