Simsinos, or the Beauty of Minimalist Pret-a-porter

12. That's the number of pieces in a typical Simsinos capsule, and we're unapologetic about that. Four or five times a year, we release a tiny group of garments, working in harmony, sharing a colour structure and slotting neatly into an existing wardrobe. No catalogue of 300 items, no dozens of options of the same t-shirt, no irrelevant filler. Our typical buyer is somewhere between 28 and 55, she works somewhere in a city and she has forgotten how enjoyable shopping can be. She wants a wool coat that falls well, a pair of slim trousers that don't bag behind her knees after a few wears and a shirt she can wear in a job interview in Lyon and on a dinner date in her own town on the same day without it costing her brain cells. We make those things, in small batches, mostly from European mills. The key thing about us that separates us from the majority of comparable brands is what we don't do. We don't restock on demand. When a capsule is sold, it's gone, and the pattern is filed away. This ensures that we get the cutting right the first time, because there's no second chance at it.

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How We Build a Capsule Collection

Each new capsule begins with one garment we actually want to wear. Everything else is designed to sit alongside it. If the starting point is a charcoal lambswool coat, then the rest of the capsule must sit beside charcoal without competing with it, which explains why our colours stay narrow: ivory, ink, camel, stone, black, with a single seasonal accent colour that rotates. The development cycle takes roughly five months from initial drawing to delivery, and the bulk of that time is spent in fitting. We pull in three different body shapes, not one fitting model, because a trouser pattern that only fits a size 34 body isn't a properly drafted trouser, it's a piece of equipment.

1. Fabric selection. We pick the fabric first, then decide what the garment can become. We factor weight and drape into the equation immediately.
2. First prototype. A garment cut in the real fabric, never in calico, so that we see its true behaviour from the start.
3. Three fitting rounds. Sizes 36, 40 and 44 tried on active volunteers for a whole working day.
4. Grading corrections. Our sleeve, shoulder and rise shape are adjusted size by size rather than scaled proportionally.
5. Limited production. Between 120 and 400 units per style, in workshops in Italy, the north of France and Portugal.

Sometimes a piece is eliminated at step three. Last spring, for example, we killed an entire linen blazer project eleven days before deadline because the sleeve head collapsed after laundering. It's expensive, but it also accounts for the wearability of everything else you see here.

The Materials We Actually Use

Fabric is where brands hide costs, and it's the one item they often quietly reduce. We publish the country of origin and full composition, including the thread and lining, on every product page. Our lambswool knitwear is mostly Italian, taken from Biella in weights ranging from 280 to 420 grams per metre depending on whether it is a coat or a jumper. Pre-washed Portuguese poplin, 120 grams, with a softened feel so it doesn't stand off the body like a stiff board. Summer projects use European linen, grown in Normandy and Flanders, and woven within the continent. Synthetics are only ever present in two spots: a tiny level of elastane in our stretch trousers and recycled polyester in the padding of winter outerwear, where you want heat retention but not forty-five more euros of down.

• Merino wool in our knitwear, 19.5 micron, machine washable on the wool cycle.
• Cotton poplin, pre-shrunk, with mother of pearl buttons mounted on a shank to sit on the surface of the fabric.
• European linen softened through an enzyme wash so that it's as comfortable from day one as your favourite pair of jeans.
• Cupro lining for our tailored jackets. Breathable, biodegradable and far more comfortable than crushable acetate.

Sizes, Fits and What a 38 Really Means

We build our designs on standard French sizes, from 34 through 46, drafted on a model who is roughly 168 centimetres tall. Anyone above 175 centimetres will find our tall-friendly designs marked clearly, where we make the inseam four centimetres longer but not extra wide or full in the body. Our three standard fits are Ajuste, which is close fitting with a cinched waist, Droit, which is our house fit, comfortable without being roomy, and Ample, in which the bodies are cut two steps wider at shoulder and chest than the Ajuste so that they're easy-wearing rather than overly voluminous. We position the wide fit as a purposely oversized cut, not a sizing mistake. Flat measurements are printed on all our product pages, in centimetres, for each size offered: waist, chest, hip, shoulder width, total length and sleeve length. Measure a garment you already own and trust in that area, then compare. It's more accurate than any size chart we could produce.

Comparing Our Lines

We develop four lines, each one chosen to have a different weight, construction time and price point. Here's where they sit in relation to each other.

Most customers buy some essentials and a blazer a year later. That's a sensible, sustainable way of shopping, and we'd rather say so than push a full-collection purchase.

Delivery in France and Abroad

Parcels are shipped from our site near Roubaix within one working day. Standard delivery within France takes two to three days through Colissimo, free for orders over €120, otherwise priced at €5.90. Point relais collection costs €3.90 and is preferred by most of our clients based in Paris, Lille or Bordeaux, because nobody is normally home by eleven a.m. Express delivery can also be requested at €12 before 1 p.m. The parcel arrives on the following working day, everywhere except Corsica and the overseas departments, where it takes up to two days more. Orders are accepted back for 30 days after delivery. Packaging contains a pre-paid label. You can leave your parcel at any relay point, and we return funds to your original payment method within five working days of its arrival. We accept Mastercard, Apple Pay, PayPal and, through our partner, payment in three instalments without supplement for orders between €100 and €1,500. We don't shorten our refund periods during the winter or summer sales, an irritating habit we've seen too often from other brands.

How to Keep Your Clothes Wearable

A coat dry-cleaned six times a year will begin to look jaded after two winters. Use a natural bristle brush on it after a few wears, have it cleaned once in the spring and hang it on a wide shouldered hanger instead of a wire one. Same for merino knitwear. Wash at thirty degrees on a wool cycle, then dry it flat on a towel, and never hang it wet. Iron linen damp, on the reverse, at high heat. Fasten your shirt buttons before you wash it, so the collar keeps its shape. Store tailored trousers folded over the horizontal bar, not clipped to it. Leather-trimmed shoes need a week between wears so the fibres recover their shape. We send a printed care sheet with each order, and we repair your garments for free, fixing linings, missing buttons and hems for as long as you want to wear the pieces. We take the cost of that work out of the season's collection budget.