Swaine London

Swaine London is the current name of a business that traces to a London whip-making concern trading from Piccadilly in the late 1700s; James Swaine bought it in 1798 and the firm went on to hold royal warrants under George III, William IV and Queen Victoria. It grew through mergers rather than a single lineage: an 1840s partnership with James Adeney added leather goods and walking sticks, and in February 1943 the firm absorbed Thomas Brigg & Sons, umbrella makers founded in 1836, becoming Swaine Adeney Brigg & Sons Ltd and gaining the Brigg umbrella name still used today. The house also acquired hatter Herbert Johnson in 1996. In 2022, under French ownership (the Chargeurs Group, which bought the company in 2020), the business rebranded as Swaine, opening a New Bond Street flagship and atelier where customers can book time with the firm's artisans, while umbrella and leather production consolidated at a workshop in Sawston, Cambridgeshire. Brigg umbrellas remain the core of the current umbrella offer - fine woods, silk canopies, bespoke sizing - alongside hats under the Herbert Johnson name and a wider leather goods and accessories range. It is one of the few British houses that can trace unbroken trading history back through four name changes to an 18th-century royal warrant holder, now operating under its shortest name yet.