Thomas Hill opens his hosiery and underwear factory in Newdigate, Nottingham. Thomas Hill was not just an innovator with a lifetime’s knowledge and experience of textile development, he was also a visionary. His aim was to make beautiful, everyday clothing from the world’s finest materials – high quality, durable garments that felt great against the skin. We remain true to this vision today.

By the turn of the 20th century Thomas A. Hill Ltd is making hosiery and undergarments from the finest cashmere, merino wool, silk and cottons and is supplying customers across the world with luxurious everyday clothing.

Thomas A. Hill imports Caribbean Sea Island cotton, the world’s rarest and finest cotton.This new fabric establishes the company’s reputation for unparalleled luxury.

The business manufactures some of the world’s earliest luxury T-shirts – simple lightweight tops made from Sea Island cotton for export to the Far East.

Traditional lace-making machines are used to create a lightweight cotton material with an open knit that allows air to circulate around the body. Q14 remains a unique fabric today.

Following the collapse in global trade caused by the Great Depression, the business falls back on domestic sales of luxury underwear made from Sea Island cotton. In 1932 the company had even briefly changed its name to ‘Sea Island Cotton Ltd.’ From 1935 the key underwear line is called ‘Sunspel’ as a nod to the ‘sunny spells’ 
of the Caribbean where the cotton is grown, and ‘Sunspel Ltd’ is formally adopted as the name of the business two years later.

The Sunspel factory relocates from Nottingham to its current home in nearby Long Eaton, where we still remain today.

The Second World War has a dramatic impact on Sunspel. In 1940 its offices in Bruton St, London are destroyed by a direct hit during the Blitz, while production at the Long Eaton factory shifts to utility clothing to assist in the war effort.

Sunspel introduces the Boxer Short to the UK after John Hill – the great grandson of our founder –takes an American underwear concept discovered on his honeymoon in the US and re-engineers it for exceptional comfort. He improves its design, adding the back panel, flattening its seams and uses the highest quality cotton. The result is a new kind of men’s underwear garment: comfortable, cool and luxuriously soft.

By the mid-1960s Sunspel has rebuilt a global reputation as the quintessential British luxury underwear brand and is present in the world’s most famous department stores.

Levi’s releases its famous ‘Launderette’ TV ad in which model Nick Kamen removes his jeans, leaving on only a pair of white Sunspel boxer shorts. The ad seizes the popular imagination and transforms the boxer from a niche luxury item in the UK to a mainstream cultural icon.

Sunspel collaborates with costume designer Lindy Hemming to dress Daniel Craig in his first James Bond film, Casino Royale. The Sunspel Riviera Polo Shirt is described by the Financial Times as ‘the easiest way to look like Bond without wearing a tuxedo’.

Sunspel opens its first standalone store, in Shoreditch’s Redchurch St. Over the next ten years, further stores are opened in some of London’s best-known shopping destinations: Old Compton St, Soho; Jermyn St, Piccadilly; Chiltern St, Marylebone; Kensington Park Rd, Notting Hill and Duke of York Square, Chelsea. In 2018, Sunspel opens a flagship US store in SoHo, New York.

The technology in the Long Eaton factory may have changed over the decades, but after 80 years the historic building remains the heart of the business. Sunspel continues to be rooted in its local community – and is one of the only brands to manufacture luxury T-shirts from its own factory in the UK.