About us

Retrosaria Rosa Pomar is dedicated to the production and commercialisation of knitting yarns made from the wool of native Portuguese sheep breeds. In 2025, we purchased and transformed over 20 tonnes of native wool, from which we create yarns and other high-quality wool products, produced entirely in Portugal and appreciated worldwide.

Our shop began in January 2008 as a small website selling fabrics and trimmings. The following year we opened a physical shop on the second floor of a building on Rua do Loreto, in Lisbon, between Bica and Chiado. This move allowed us to expand our product range and to begin offering classes in knitting, sewing and other textile techniques, at a time when this kind of training was still very scarce in Portugal. It was in this space that the idea of creating knitting yarns from Portuguese wool first emerged — something that did not exist on the market at all. We initially purchased yarns from woollen mills, such as our much-loved Mé-Mé yarn, produced by the now-defunct Lanifícios Império spinning mill. However, we soon realised that only by working directly with producers (shepherds, farmers and sheep-breeders’ associations), and by closely following every stage of raw-material processing, could we guarantee full traceability and design the most suitable yarns for each type of wool.

In 2021 we moved to our current shop in the Anjos neighbourhood, and in the following year we began planning the development of a line of ready-to-wear knitwear made from native wool, fully traceable and produced in Portugal from raw material to finished product. We launched this new line in 2023 with Cardigans 01 and 02.

We currently produce breed-specific yarns using the wool of several native Portuguese sheep breeds. Some are made exclusively from the wool of a single breed (such as João and Zagal, in 100% Merino Branco and 100% Merino Preto), while others combine wool from different breeds (for example, our Brusca yarn blends Saloia wool with Merino Branco and Merino Preto). At present we use the wool of seven of the sixteen native Portuguese breeds in our production, and we continue to research new ways of enhancing this heritage and bringing it back into everyday use.

Learning to design yarns for Portuguese wool is inseparable from the study and practice of the various artisanal techniques of working with wool that still survive in Portugal. Different wools lend themselves to different kinds of yarns and require very different tools and skills. Travelling the country to learn directly from those who still hand-process local wool — washing, carding, combing, spinning, weaving and knitting — has been, and continues to be, the best school for this work, enabling us to create yarns that make the best possible use of each wool’s characteristics. Likewise, working directly with sheep farmers is the only way to ensure that they are fairly remunerated for the raw material they produce and, through this recognition of value, to help reverse the current vicious cycle of wool devaluation.

Portuguese wools are divided into three categories: finas, entrefinas and churras. While the first group (which includes the Merino Branco, Merino Preto and Merino da Beira Baixa breeds) is sought after for its softness, at Retrosaria we believe that softness is overrated as the main attribute of wool, and we also work extensively with the other two categories. Among the entrefinas (also known as tipo cruzado or bordaleiro) are Saloia wool — from one of Portugal’s most endangered native breeds, whose entire annual clip is purchased by Retrosaria — and Campaniça wool, native to the Baixo Alentejo, which gives rise, for example, to our much-loved Mondim, Vovó and Matiz yarns. We also work with churra wools, the most undervalued on the market, from the Churra Badana and Churra do Campo breeds, with which we produce the Badana and Cobertor yarns, respectively. We believe that all wools can be used to make quality yarns, provided we understand what we want to achieve with them. To encourage knitters to explore our yarns, we also design knitting patterns available in digital format or as complete kits.

In addition to our own yarns and products, Retrosaria offers a wide range of textile-craft materials from other brands, focusing on quality and, whenever possible, national production. Alongside fabrics, yarns, haberdashery items and fibre-processing tools, we also stock a broad selection of specialised practical books, with particular emphasis on Portuguese publications on textiles and other areas of artisanal production.

Retrosaria’s activity extends beyond our shop and beyond national borders through talks, workshops and other outreach initiatives focused on the value of wool. Internationally, our yarns are stocked in more than a hundred leading yarn shops around the world, and our work has inspired several European projects dedicated to the promotion of local wool.

Rosa Pomar, founder of Retrosaria, studied History at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa and Visual Arts at Ar.Co – Centro de Arte e Comunicação Visual, also in Lisbon. Her work as a researcher and author focuses on traditional Portuguese textile practices, historical knitting techniques and the material culture of wool. She is the author of Malhas Portuguesas (Portuguese Knitting), a publication documenting regional knitting traditions in Portugal and widely used as a reference in the study of Portuguese textile heritage.