Our Story

Embers Merino is a small UK company, founded in 2006 by two energetic people from opposite sides of the globe,(UK and NZ).

Mountains and the great outdoors are central to the Embers way of life.

Inspired and guided by a need for natural clothing which not only performs in the mountains but combines equal measures of form, function and versatility.

It seemed destiny that the raw material for all of our products would be found high in NZ’s Southern Alps.
The versatility of the Merino fibres we use in all our garments is second to none.

Luxurious, stylish and technically superb, our clothing provides protection and comfort to the wearer through every season just as it did when it was being worn by it’s original owner (the sheep).

Co-Founder Chris : Kayaking in Nepal

Embers is based in the Amber Valley to the south of Derbyshire’s Peak District.

This area has a long and deep textile heritage and was recently awarded world heritage status due to the fact that it is the home of the world’s very first textile mills.

We are a small niche company and that’s how we like it. We have a passion, a specialisation and we swear by and live in our products day in, day out.

We also aim to provide first class service to all our customers.

If you’d like more info then please get in touch.

Embers Merino: The Natural Selection

Co-Founder Marianna : Ski touring, French Alps

A short history

2005: Was mostly spent chewing the end of pencils, speaking to people in far off lands and designing, tinkering, re-designing and then finally ordering the first embers range. The lag time between order and arrival of the goods was spent preparing photoshoots, website, brochures and marketing.
This time was also pretty full of worry, despair and hope in approximately equal measure!

2006: Embers was officially launched: Run from a small office in Belper Derbyshire. Our First stock arrived in numerous boxes which took up far more space than we planned for.
Somehow we managed to find room amongst the boxes for a desk, phone and computer. Orders started to trickle in over the first few months – many from friends around the globe (thanks folks) but most excitingly from people we didn’t know, from exotic locations like Bognor Regis, Oban and Madrid. The thrill of knowing that anyone with a computer can browse and buy from our site at any time of day still hasn’t worn off.
We attended loads of events throughout the UK to promote the brand and let people know we exist. It worked, people liked our stuff.

2007: We still had a fair amount of stock from our original order and started wondering whether the New Year meant we should have a new range. Thankfully we quickly remembered what we’d stated when we set out.
We are not a fashion brand and will not change things every season just for the sake of new colours or phoney ‘improvements’. What a relief.
That said, by the middle of the year another new order was needed. More Boxes meant less space and more products to put online.
Our original website had looked really nice but actually wasn’t so practical for displaying many products. Products at the ‘end of the site’ got hardly any clicks, whereas the ones near the front got almost all the hits and sales. The new website was far more user friendly and looked great.
Our Events schedule started to take a more structured shape. We dropped the unsuccessful ones and got back to concentrating on our core markets. A routine of outdoors show in early spring, Mountain Bike races in the summer and ski and snowboard events in the winter became established. That pretty much covered all bases with regards to our client base and we actually got to put faces to some of the names who’d bought online.

2008: Marked the arrival of the Embers Merino Van ‘the blue whale’. This made attending all the exhibitions less expensive and also meant we didn’t have to spend ages cleaning out the hire vans we used to use!
Our original supplier ceased trading so we had a year of pretty big upheaval trying to find new suppliers. We eventually found what we were looking for and breathed a sigh of relief.
Sales were good in the winter and lower in the summer, a trend we realised we needed to try and level out, so we started working on some super lightweight items and cycle wear ideal for summer.

We had some great fun doing photoshoots across Derbyshire, which didn’t really seem like work.
Famous faces spotted wearing Embers in 2008 were Julia Bradbury, Dan Snow and Christian Stevenson. If you know of any others please let us know.
The credit crunch started to bite, banks went bust, big business started to grind to a halt, we began to worry about what effect all this would have on our own micro business.
On the plus side, we were selling a niche product and doing so at a competitive price.
We pressed on and put some lucky heather on our desks.

2009: More supplier problems – the downturn was having an indirect effect on us.
We struggled to get stock as businesses who had been making things for decades shut up shop.
Our growth slowed but we were happy to still be in business when others around us are failing.
We finally tracked down three new suppliers and got new stock in.
The arrival of new boxes combined with an inability to raise the roof meant we needed more space.
We moved into a small warehouse unit in Belper and set a small area aside for retail.
We painted the floor prior to moving in and for some reason the paint didn't’t stick! In the end we got it sorted and we moved in.

2010: We launched our Velo cycle range, which is made right here in the UK.
Space suddenly seemed to be a bit tight again so we moved premises.
Moving is no fun and takes ages, but we eventually got set up in a historical Old Corn Mill in the centre of Belper.
It’s cold in winter and cold in summer. Which is good 50% of the time! There is also a bar downstairs although this had no influence in our choice of location.
Low attendances at many exhibitions made us reconsider our events schedule. We cut it right back and concentrated on our core business - online sales.

2011: A good busy year, online sales grew nicely and our decision not to attend the shows this year seemed justified. A great product idea which we had back in 2007 is now getting close to fruition. We also started to experiment with some other interesting merino blended fabrics. Considered launching a kids clothing range due to many requests, 2012 maybe. Trail magazine included some of our products in their Christmas gift guide confirming our belief that we make the nicest merino baselayers available!

2012: Hoping for another fine year!