TO CONTINUE TO CREATE DESIRABLE, SUSTAINABLE AND TIMELESS CLOTHING, BY MAINTAINING TRADITIONAL TEXTILE KNOW-HOW IN FRANCE.
HISTORY.
1922 ― Madame Berthe Etui sets up a knitting workshop in Lorient, Brittany, France, to make jumpers for Breton fishermen. This workshop will become the “Manufacture de Bonneterie Lorientaise” (MBL).
1936 ― Mrs. Marie-Anne Le Minor creates an embroidery workshop in Pont l’Abbé, Brittany, France, to save this centuries-old know-how. The history of Le Minor is then shared between these two workshops.
1950 ― Le Minor invents the “Kabig”, a Breton duffle-coat, which will appeal to the French and also to the haute-couture houses (including Courrèges), who will come to manufacture woollen coats in the Le Minor workshops. Le Minor employed up to 500 people in the 1970s a true regional symbol.
1964 ― The “Manufacture de Bonneterie Lorientaise” dresses Eric Tabarly, the most famous French sailor, during his mythical victory in the “transat anglaise”. In those years, the workshop began to dress the general public with its marine jumpers and cotton marinières.
1970 ― The company wins the French Navy contract and begins to manufacture the required jersey until 2010. Today, the Guidel workshop continues to manufacture this jumper, which is made to last a lifetime.
1982 ― The two workshops merge, and the brand moves to Guidel, near Lorient, to offer a complete wardrobe for the whole family, still made in Brittany.
1990 ― Le Minor arrives in Japan and develops a wide range of colours for its stripes. Nowadays, Le Minor has more than 1,200 points of sale in the land of the rising sun, where stylish women swear by this traditional marinière made in Brittany.
2018 . 2021 ― 35 people join the workshop to safeguard and develop the textile know-how and keep this fashion story alive. Le Minor opens a second workshop in Quimper.
2022 ― Born from these stories of men and seas, Le Minor continues to create quality clothing, entirely made in Brittany. The house is 100 years old.
MANUFACTURE.
Le Minor’s workshops are fully integrated : the knitwear used to make the brand’s clothes is knitted there.
The knitting, cutting and tailoring skills are jealously preserved and developed in Guidel and Quimper, in two of the company’s own workshops, to ensure that the quality of Le Minor clothing continues.
On looms dating from the 60s and 80s, the cotton is knitted to produce a solid fabric with a very special fall. The carded cotton used to make Le Minor fabrics gives a unique hand to Le Minor T-shirts and marinières.
Le Minor’s workshops also knit wool on large flatbed machines, not afraid to use the pure virgin wool that our ancestors loved, but also using softer fibres such as merino wool.
The cutting and making up stages are entirely done by hand because the delicacy of our knits and their finish requires intelligent and careful handling. It takes a lot of patience to quilt, line up, trace, cut, sew and re-sew a Le Minor marinière or jumper.
In 2022, Le Minor is completely renovating its factory building in Guidel, Brittany.
SUSTAINABLE FASHION.
At Le Minor, sustainable fashion means first and foremost making clothes that last over time.
The solidity and quality of Le Minor’s clothing has been proven. Validated by demanding customers, such as the French Navy or Japanese customers, it has made the reputation of the brand among old Breton people who have known it for several decades. The opening of the brand’s second-hand department in January 2021 is a reminder of this dimension, which is the first pillar of sustainable fashion.
At Le Minor, sustainable fashion also means truly local manufacturing.
Le Minor clothing has always been made in the brand’s workshops. From A to Z. This model of a fully integrated manufacturing brand (even the fabric for the marinières is made in Le Minor’s workshops) has become rare in France.
Lastly, sustainable fashion means perpetuating know-how. Since 1922, knitting know-how has been passed down from generation to generation in the workshops of Le Minor brand.
Between 2018 and 2021, no less than 35 people joined the Le Minor workshops, ensuring the training of a new generation of hosiery workers, seamstresses and dressmakers, against a backdrop of a 30-year decline in the French textile industry.
In 2023, the brand has set itself a new objective. After recycling cotton and wool fabric scraps from manufacturing into insulation for the building industry, Le Minor is now working on recycling these scraps into yarns, to knit clothes again.
TIMELESS AND MODERN. Collections.
M.B.L.
“
Manufacture de Bonneterie Lorientaise”
Le Minor is a historic brand whose heritage dates back to 1922, with the founding of a hosiery workshop in Lorient, designed to dress Breton fishermen. Today, thanks to its know-how, Le Minor continues to produce these timeless clothes, made to last.
With a history of over 100 years, Le Minor is the oldest Breton hosiery company. It is still a manufacturing brand that has the exceptional characteristic of producing all its garments in its two Breton workshops (Guidel and Quimper) and of producing them entirely there.
