Keela

Keela was founded in 1989 in Glenrothes, on Scotland's east coast in Fife, initially to design and manufacture technical clothing for volunteer mountain rescue teams working in the Scottish Highlands. Early kit was tested directly by local mountain rescue volunteers under real weather conditions rather than in a lab, a working relationship the company has maintained since. Keela's founder patented one of the first seam-sealing machines used in outdoor-clothing manufacture, a technology central to making waterproof garments genuinely watertight at the seams rather than just across the face fabric. In 2001, the company used that capability to launch what it describes as the first fully tape-sealed fleece jacket, and it later developed System Dual Protection (SDP), a double-layer fabric system that won a Queen's Award for Enterprise in the innovation category. Beyond mountain rescue, Keela now supplies technical outerwear to UK police, ambulance and fire services and to Ministry of Defence units, alongside its consumer outdoor range. The company also runs a long-standing repair service — its 'Clothing Hospital' — that mends worn or damaged garments rather than routing them to landfill.