Pantherella - Established 1937

Pantherella first opened its doors in 1937 and began trading as Midlands Hosiery Mills, an established women's hosiery factory. Fast forward to 1945 and our name was changed and a legend was born: Pantherella Fine English Socks began trading.

Innovation and Pioneers

The maverick behind Pantherella was Louis Goldschmidt, he had a vision that fine gauge english socks were the future. Tired of producing bulky bland, uncomfortable socks for men he believed that lightweight, seamless, fancy socks would be in high demand. After careful persuasion Goldschmidt convinced local machine makers P.A. Bentley to produce a specialist sock machine. The demand for lightweight mens socks was significant. By the time the competitors cottoned on to Goldschmidt’s   innovative design plans he had already set the industry standard, leaving the competition in the shadows. Pantherella were renowned for creating the worlds finest socks.

 Pantherella Goes Global

Over his time in the industry Goldschmidt had developed an admirable list of contacts, enabling him to export his products within Europe. It was during the 1940s he began exporting to North America, followed by Australia in later years. Pantherella's exports grew to huge numbers, on average 75% of production. Pantherella was a storming success the world over.

 Provenence, Design & Quality

Pantherella has never shied away from setting precedents; when others have turned to cheaper alternatives, Pantherella have held firm in their beliefs, still today making all of our fine English socks right here behind the blue door at our family owned factory in Leicester. Pantherella's philosophy of 'Provenance, Design & Quality' still rings true today. Our collections have advanced in leaps and bounds since the early days of Louis' basic ribbed socks.

Where are Pantherella socks made?

At the Pantherella factory on Hallaton Street, Leicester.

Why is it there?

Leicester city has historically had a strong association with the production of textiles, clothing and shoes. The current factory is situated in a housing estate that was built in 1924 and many of our employees live close by.

How long has it been there?

The Zanetic Works building was originally constructed for Pencarbon Co. in the 1910s when they were listed as manufacturers of the celebrated Zanetic Penduplicating Paper. In 1940 Pantherella moved from Staffordshire to the site in Hallaton Street, Leicester; and in 1962 it moved to its present, larger site in the same street.

Who works in the factory?

The Pantherella workforce is made up of many departments: Knitting, Toe Closing, Wet Process, Design & Development, Production, Sales, Accounts, Marketing and Quality Control. 

The skills of our Knitters, Knitting Mechanics, Linkers and Trimmers are unique to the hosiery industry and take years to perfect.

What is the process behind making a Pantherella sock?

At the start of the season our design team visit the Pitti Filati show in Florence, Italy, the main international event for the knitting yarn industry, to research new yarn developments and global trends.

Once the yarns for the season have been decided on, new designs are drawn up back in the studio at Hallaton Street and then developed via our CAD technicians into knitting patterns. 

Quality control inspect the socks as they come off the machines to ensure size, fit and consistency. 

The knitted socks move from the knitting machine room through to the toe-closing department where many are carefully hand-linked together to give a virtually seamless toe for added comfort. 

Next the socks are washed, shaped and dried and any stray threads are trimmed – at this stage our team of examiners also carefully inspect each individual sock for any irregularities.

Finally the socks are paired and hand-packed ready for dispatch to our customers.

Pantherella have unrivalled quality standards - What are they?

We care about our socks. The fine English socks produced by Pantherella are synonymous with quality, design and style. Quality is a part of Pantherella’s DNA and a core feature of every sock we manufacture, no matter what style, fibre or shade/pattern.

 The highest quality yarns we use are sourced from highly reputable European yarn suppliers.

 Socks are knit on computerised knitting machines to very exact standards. The socks then pass through a number of critically and technically controlled processes before being individually examined and hand finished prior to packing and shipping.

 The same care and attention is applied at the Pantherella Design and Development stage, so as to ensure that Pantherella Quality is built into every sock produced.

What standards do we adhere to?

All Pantherella & Scott Nichol socks exceed Internationally Recognised minimum requirements for such things as: Colour Bleed, Washing Shrinkage, Fibre “Bobbling” and “Wearing out”. In “Techno – Speak”, these are referred to as; Colour Fastness, Stability, Pilling and Abrasion.

New Designs and New Developments are also put through a rigorous ‘Real World’ Wearer Trial Program prior to any product being released for inclusion in any of our collections.

What tests do we carry out?

Sourced yarns a carefully checked for continuity of shade, to ensure each delivery of yarn is exactly the same shade as the last delivery. At knitting, no machine is allowed to produce a single sock without ensuring that any sock produced will meet our strict size tolerances. Every sock produced will be visually examined at least twice before reaching our final examination / hand finishing area, where once again, every sock is carefully examined to ensure there are no defects.

 Socks are also randomly sampled from the hand finishing area and physically tested to ensure they meet our exacting standards. The Colour Fastness test used is an International test that reproduces the worst case scenario of a coloured sock being washed with a white sock. If excessive staining is ever identified, then the batch of socks are rejected, investigated and subsequently reprocessed.

The Stability test replicates the recommended Care Label wash (3 times) and measures how much a sock will Shrink or Grow. If a sock shrinks or grows excessively then the batch of socks are rejected, investigated and subsequently reprocessed.

The Pilling and Abrasion tests are carried out at the Design and Development stage of a sock’s life to ensure that the yarns used in a specific construction can take the day to day wear and tear of life in the real world. If any sock fails either of these tests, then the sock will be re-developed using a different yarn and/or a different construction. All of the tests are destructive, but only take about 1 day to complete, so we can be sure that results are timely and do not cause delays in getting socks to our customers.

How long do they take? What do they ensure? Who does our testing?

All of the physical testing that are carried out are done ‘In-house’ by trained staff in our custom built Quality Control Laboratory. However, we do use external, Internationally Accredited Testing Laboratories to carry out some specialist tests. These include; Due Diligence testing for the presence of European (REACh) and USA (TSCA) banned harmful substances and very exact Fibre Compositions, where we use multiple fibres in a sock design.