The Return of Haruka Knitwear: Beyond Fairtrade
Click Here for the Haruka 2025 Knitwear Collection
Haruka Knitwear 2025/26 – Made to Order Collection
Pre-Order Deadline: 21st November 2025
(or sooner if capacity is reached)
After nearly a decade, the iconic Haruka knitwear is back.
This considered collection is made from 100% lambswool, aligning with our commitment to natural fibres — real wool, not synthetic mixes.
Each style is crafted from high-quality yarn and individually dyed in-house, allowing us to offer a bespoke, extensive palette of earthy, elegant colours.
As always, our focus is on inclusive sizing, slow fashion, and investment pieces.
We’re offering seven core styles in fourteen colours, along with accessories such as obi belts, stoles, hats, and leg warmers.
The entire collection is offered on a made-to-order basis, building on our ethos of slow, sustainable, and intentional fashion — made in a fair-trade, transparent, and ethical way.
Rather than guessing order numbers or over-producing unnecessarily, this system reflects both our ecological prioritiesand our realistic parameters.
It enables you to choose a dedicated piece of knitwear in your size and colour — made especially for you.
This is not about instant gratification.
It’s about discernment, longevity, and thoughtful choices that last.
System Change — Collaboration and Friendship
This collection was born from friendship, shared history, and the belief that collaboration can change the way fashion works.
It marks a new chapter for Haruka — a partnership with Poonam, and a project two years in the making. Behind the scenes are the realities of production, made more complex by the nature of being an independent small business.
Things like minimum order quantities, lead times, dyeing times, how to offer it on my website, and a million other things. You name it — there’s a logistic!
To be honest, this is the most complex production I have ever done.
And yet, I am energised and inspired by the hurdles and the possibilities.
For the first time, I am sharing a business equally: half the investment, half the work, half the risk, and a joint share of any profits.
This is beyond fair trade — this is real system change.
And it matters to me. It matters a lot.
It’s coming from the heart.
Poonam has been in my life for almost two decades. When we first met in 2007, she was running a sampling and production unit in Kathmandu. Working with her was, in many ways, the beginning of the Haruka label as we know it — even though I had already been designing and producing clothes in Varanasi for several years.
Together, we created ethical clothing in a range of sustainable fabrics. One of the highlights of that period was our adventures with hemp silk.
Poonam’s technical mastery and creative insight transformed my approach to design. Her career has spanned running her own boutique and factory, collaborating with English and European brands, and training in technical production and development.
She has also audited factories across Asia and Africa for health and safety, social responsibility, crisis management, and compliance — and, most importantly for us, quality control to ensure garments match their technical specifications.
This is why Poonam’s skills are so crucial to this knitwear capsule collection.
There is no way I would attempt it without her.
Poonam’s influence on my work — and on Haruka — runs deep.
We are the same age and have built the length, breadth, and depth of our friendship over years and moments, across continents and experiences.
We’ve endured births and deaths, transitions, traumas, and triumphs.
I have immense gratitude for her and cannot imagine collaborating with anyone else on a partnership project like the relaunch of the Haruka knitwear collection.
The knitwear is being produced by our friend Motikaji (see photo below, man with cat), who made the original Haruka knitwear nearly ten years ago.
We’ve all worked together before — which feels both grounding and right.
Motikaji brings a unique blend of old-world craft and modern expertise to this project.
He has moved all his knitwear machines into his house in Basantapur, the ancient part of Kathmandu. His background is in training government vocational students and running his own home-based knitting workshop. A master knitwear technician, he’s also a proud member of the Maru Ganesh temple clan, whose community has lived there for centuries.
He remains deeply involved in the ancient shamanic practices of his culture and is a skilled musician and performer in the annual Indra Jatra chariot procession.
He’s a few years older than me and walks to the top of Swayambhunath Monkey Temple every morning before sunrise.
He also brings fresh Nepali doughnuts — one of Kathmandu’s finest breakfast offerings — to our morning meetings with Poonam. They sell out early, so when I’m there, he becomes my doughnut supplier!
Excuse my small diversion from knitwear — but it’s so important to me to share the human side.
People are what make my world go round.
The tide is turning against mass, unfettered production.
We are not machines — we are human, and we crave human stories.
There is a growing awareness of slow fashion, independent business, and cost per wear — and a rising desire for things with meaning: things that last, things that biodegrade, things with provenance.
It is human to desire beauty, but what we long for now is beauty with care, beauty with story, beauty with soul.
And so it’s important we keep asking the question:
#WhoMadeMyClothes?
There is so much more I could say.
If you’d like to dive deeper into our story, friendship, and the context of our work in Kathmandu, you can read the heartfelt blog I wrote after my 2025 visit — it remains one of my personal favourites:
👉 https://haruka.co.uk/2024/04/05/poonam-kathmandu/
Come to My Studio
I know this isn’t possible for all of you — which is why I’ve gone to such lengths to upload everything as comprehensively and as honestly as I can on my website.
However, for those of you who can make it, I absolutely encourage you to get in touch.
You have a month — until 21st November (or sooner if we reach capacity!).
WhatsApp works best for me:
📱 +44 7912 662387
I’ll post some Open Studio Days on my social media, but mostly, please make a time to visit.
Come and try the samples on. Bring your friends.
Talk to me. Let’s make this happen.
There’s never any pressure to buy — I’m just not that kind of person.
Besides, I believe our knitwear sells itself.
This is an ongoing collaboration for Poonam and me — I know that in my bones.
What shape it will ultimately take remains part of the great mystery, and that’s what excites me.
We’re in the realm of raw creativity.
One thing I know: now is a great time to get onboard.
We’re going to good places.
For those of you who can’t make it to the studio, you’re warmly invited to arrange a WhatsApp video call while I’m there.
We can talk it through, look at the samples, try them on, share measurements — freestyle!
I’ve done it a few times already and it really works.
Personal shopping at its best.
I also want you to meet Poonam, so I’m planning an online event soon.
If anyone would like to interview us — or has ideas — I’d love to hear from you.
I have ideas of my own too.
Watch this space.
Love,
Amanda and Poonam x
*“Come, come, whoever you are.
Wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving.
It doesn’t matter.
Ours is not a caravan of despair.
Come, even if you have broken your vow a thousand times.
Come, yet again, come, come.”*
— Jalāl ad-Dīn Rumi
THE SMALL PRINT
Terms and Conditions
Each Haruka knitwear piece is made to order, created especially for you.
Because of this bespoke process, we’re unable to offer refunds simply because you change your mind.
In line with the Consumer Rights Act 2015, you are entitled to a refund, repair, or replacement if your bespoke garment is faulty or does not match the agreed description or specification.
Please note that the standard 14-day cooling-off period does not apply to made-to-order or bespoke items.
Sizing and Measurements
Measurement charts are provided on every product listing, after the photographs.
Please read these carefully, as they show the final garment measurements of the piece you’ll receive.
Photographs, size guidelines, and model information are included to help visualise fit — but your decision should be based on the listed measurements.
If you’re unsure how to measure yourself accurately, here’s a helpful guide:
👉 How to Measure Yourself — Good Housekeeping
A Note on Colour
The floating garment pictures have been photoshopped to illustrate the different colour choices available and help you dream your perfect power piece into being.
However, please look at all photographs of the actual knitwear pieces on the models for a more accurate representation of colour.
As you know, colour displays differently depending on the viewer’s screen, so please take this into account.
Pre-Order and Payment
By placing a pre-order, you agree to pay a 50% deposit (plus postage) at the time of ordering.
The remaining 50% will be requested before your finished garment is dispatched, via a secure payment link sent to your email.
Production and Delivery
We aim to deliver all pre-order knitwear by January 19th, 2026 (‘Blue Monday’).
Every piece involves a complex, small-batch process — from bespoke knitting to in-house dyeing — and our colour range is intentionally broad and ambitious.
We wouldn’t make this offer if we didn’t believe we could do it. We are fully behind ourselves.
However, while we’ll do everything possible to meet this delivery date (believe me, Poonam and I are both perfectionists!), we cannot guarantee it absolutely.
Production takes place in Nepal, where current political conditions may cause unforeseen delays.
Because this is new territory for us with many variables — due to the sheer scope of the offer (think: how long is a piece of string!) — if you haven’t received your knitwear by February 1st, 2026, you’ll be able to request a refund of your deposit and cancel the order.
Not that I want to break your heart! But we really hope
a) this won’t happen, and
b) if it does, you’ll be able to hang on a little longer.
*“Another world is not only possible, she is on her way.
On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”*
— Arundhati Roy