Two brothers and a mill on the Wigger.

Lang Yarns — styled LANGYARNS by the company — is the hand-knitting yarn brand of Lang & Co. AG of Reiden, in the canton of Lucerne, Switzerland. The company’s slogan is “Quality since 1867,” and it describes itself as a family business in its sixth generation.

The family’s story begins just over the cantonal border. The Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz, Switzerland’s national historical dictionary, describes the Langs as a manufacturing family of Oftringen, in the canton of Aargau, and of Reiden. Bernhard Lang (1796–1876) ran a home-weaving and putting-out business in Oftringen from the 1820s. His sons Adolf (1824–89) and Theodor (1829–81), a member of the Aargau cantonal parliament, bought a mill in Reiden in 1863 and set up a cotton-spinning mill that began operating in 1867 — the year in the company’s slogan. The firm then moved its seat to Reiden. Adolf’s son, Arnold Lang, became a well-known zoologist.

The company tells the start slightly differently. Its history page says Theodor Lang acquired the Unterwassermühle, a mill in Reiden, in 1860, and built on its land one of the first industrial businesses in the Wigger valley: a mechanical cotton-spinning mill driven by the water of the River Wigger. It says the mill spun fine Mako cotton yarns and already exported them to Germany and France. We give both accounts; the national dictionary dates the purchase to 1863 and credits it to both brothers.

From cotton spinning to hand-knitting yarn.

The turn to hand-knitting yarn came with the third generation. The Historisches Lexikon says Ernst Lang (1867–1921), who from 1918 chaired the Swiss heritage society Schweizer Heimatschutz, joined the firm in 1889, after which a twisting mill was opened and the company specialised in hand-knitting yarns. The company dates the twisting mill to 1894, says the first high-quality hand-knitting yarns were made in that period, and adds that the factory was electrified with a turbine of its own.

According to the company, Erich Lang followed his father after Ernst’s early death and, during the Depression, decided to sell hand-knitting yarns under the family’s own brand, LANG. From the 1960s, it says, Ernst H. Lang built export markets including the United States and Japan. The Historisches Lexikon records about 200 employees in the 1970s and a German subsidiary, in Düsseldorf, from 1986.

For anyone asking where Lang yarn is made, the key fact is one the company’s history page leaves implicit. The Historisches Lexikon says Lang gave up spinning in 1991 and production in 2000, and since then has concentrated on the marketing and distribution of hand-knitting yarns, with about 30 staff in Switzerland and 10 in Germany when the entry was written in 2005. The company today says it “cooperates with further industrial partners in Europe” (our translation) and does not name them. Its entry in the Swiss commercial register still gives the production of and trade in hand-knitting yarns as its purpose, but that is a statement of permitted business, not evidence of manufacturing in Reiden.

Yarn makers of seven countries.

The seven brands in this group all sell the same basic thing — yarn for knitting and crochet — and come from seven countries: Rowan from the UK, DROPS from Norway, Malabrigo from Uruguay, Lang Yarns from Switzerland, Schachenmayr from Germany, Lion Brand from the United States and Noro from Japan. A ball of wool looks simple, but the businesses behind these names are not alike.

Among yarn makers in general there are family firms still carrying a founder’s name, brands that sit inside larger corporate groups, dye houses that colour fibre by hand in small batches, and companies that sell as much through free patterns as through the yarn itself. Some spin their own fibre; others design and dye, and buy in the spinning. Some sell direct, and some reach most of the world through distributors, so the company that makes a yarn and the company whose name appears in a shop are not always the same.

This guide sets out what can be checked about each brand — who founded it, who owns it, and what it says about where its yarns are spun and dyed — and marks clearly what rests only on the company’s own word.

Still in the family, now a design and sourcing house.

The company is still in the family. The Historisches Lexikon says the fifth or sixth generation has led it since 1995; the company says Jakob Lang, of the sixth generation, took over at the start of the 2000s. Its organisation page names Lang & Co. AG in Reiden as the parent and Lang Garn & Wolle GmbH, now based in Korschenbroich near Mönchengladbach, as its wholly owned German subsidiary — a different town from the Düsseldorf recorded in 2005. Each March, the company says, it shows new yarns, designs and marketing ideas to the trade at the H+H fair in Cologne.

Lang has made sourcing part of its pitch. In 2017, its FAQ says, it decided to convert its merino yarns to wool from sheep not subjected to mulesing, taken from certified Australian farms or from regions such as South Africa and South America. A “Trace your yarn” tool lets knitters enter an article number and dye lot to follow selected yarns back to the farm and the flock, and a range called RAW by LANGYARNS offers 16 yarns for hand dyers. Its website also carries a separate WOOLADDICTS section alongside the main brand, and publishes pattern books and seasonal knit-alongs.

The company presents itself less as a mill than as a fashion house for knitters. Its company page says it sees itself as “part of the fashion world” (our translation), developing yarns to suit current fashion alongside long-running classics, with fine natural fibres at the centre, and designing knitwear with matching patterns to go with them. It sells through specialist yarn shops rather than directly: it calls itself a partner of the specialist trade, works through sales representatives in Europe and distribution partners elsewhere, and its FAQ sends buyers with a faulty ball back to the shop where they bought it.

For a design guide, Lang Yarns shows how a mill name can outlast the mill: the slogan still points to 1867, while the work has moved from spinning to design, sourcing and distribution. Compare Bernina, another Swiss family company in the craft trade, and DROPS, which has never spun its own yarn. For this guide we use river teal, Mako cotton cream and a deep red with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Lang Yarns’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.