Our Story

KELE Clothing is an independent knitwear label run by a small group of nice people based in Budapest. We make timeless, simple clothes with a sense of fun and a healthy dose of color.

KELE was established in 2011 by designer Ildikó Kele and two close friends who shared the same love of beautiful things. They wanted to create something new and surprising for the market using the finest yarns you can find. Something vibrant and fresh but still classic. It’s all about drawing upon tradition in order to create something new.

KELE’s story begins in the early 2000’s when Ildikó saw a knitting machine in action for the first time. She was amazed, and spent many hours just staring at the needles catching yarn over and over to create stitches. She became fascinated with the freedom a knitting machine can give to a designer. She was already imagining endless variations of form, structure and motif. She knew straight away that this was what she wanted to do. It might sound a bit odd to you, but for her, that realization was liberating. For her, the hard physical work is just as important as the design process (hmm, now you might really think she’s odd). Ildikó is an active contributor at every little step of the design and sampling process. Thanks to her parents, she was born into a tradition that’s rarely seen nowadays where you think about sustainability and a sense of quality. She strives to perfect even the tiniest of details; that’s why every garment has a soul and a very personal story to tell.

Now, after thousands of meters of yarn, countless hours of work, and many years of experimentation we at KELE are presenting two seasonal collections every year. Our aim is to make clothes as well as we possibly can.

Let the thing you make be the thing you love. That’s what we do.