PFORMÉ
Pilates · Movement · FormPFORMÉ is a small British label making grip socks and studio clothing for pilates. We make very few things, we make them properly, and we keep making them. We open for orders soon.
Why we exist
It started with a sock that would not stay put.
Anyone who has taught pilates has watched it happen: a client slides on the footbar mid-footwork, corrects, and spends the rest of the series thinking about their feet instead of their breathing. The socks on the market were either a full rubber sole that stiffened the foot, or a scatter of dots that gripped in exactly the wrong places.
So we mapped it. We marked up the soles of forty pairs of worn socks from one studio, looked at where the silicone had actually rubbed away, and knitted grip into those five zones only — the ball, the outer edge, the heel, and two narrow bands under the arch. Nowhere else. It flexes because most of the sole is still just knitted cotton.
Everything since has been made the same way: start with what the body is doing, not with what looks good on a rail. It is a slower way to build a range — five years, in our case — and it is why there will only ever be fourteen things in the store.
How we got here
Five years to a first day.
2021
One studio, one sample
A reformer teacher in Hackney asked for a sock that gripped where her clients actually pressed. The first run was fifty pairs, knitted on a sampling machine and hand-finished at a kitchen table.
2022
Porto
We found a family mill outside Porto that had been knitting fine-gauge hosiery for four decades and was willing to take on a very small order. They still make every sock we sell.
2024
The clothing
Seven pieces, developed with teachers rather than for them — reworked four times before the waistband stopped rolling in a teaser. The Form Legging took eleven months.
Soon
Opening the doors
The first run is being knitted now and the boxes are printed. When it lands, the store opens — five years after the first fifty pairs came off a sampling machine.
Materials
What it is made of, without the poetry.
We would rather tell you the exact composition and let you judge it than describe our fabric as buttery. Here is everything that goes into a PFORMÉ garment.
- Recycled where it performs
- Our nylon is GRS-certified recycled and our polyamide comes from post-industrial waste. We use virgin elastane, because recycled elastane does not yet hold its recovery — we will change that the day it does.
- Cotton with a name
- GOTS-certified organic cotton, combed long-staple, spun in Portugal. It costs about a third more than the conventional equivalent and it is the reason the socks soften rather than pill.
- Dyed in closed loop
- Our dyehouse recovers and re-treats over 90% of its process water. The palette is deliberately narrow partly for this reason: fewer dye baths, less waste, better consistency.
- Packaging that is not rubbish
- Recycled board, acid-free tissue, paper seals, soy inks. No plastic anywhere in the box, including the tape. If you cannot recycle it locally, send it back and we will.
The box
The last thing we designed, and the one people mention.
The wordmark is printed and debossed into uncoated board so you can feel it. The tissue is folded in thirds and closed with the PF seal by the same two people who will pack every order. The first order you place will have a card in it, written by hand.
It is not a small expense for a company our size, and we costed it before we costed anything else. A pair of socks bought as a gift should not arrive in a polybag.
For studios and teachers.
We are taking wholesale conversations now, ahead of opening — and making socks branded for the studio itself, the same knit with your name on the cuff, from a hundred pairs. Teachers will get thirty percent off everything, permanently, with proof of a current qualification. Get in touch before launch and the account will be ready on day one.
Talk to us about wholesale