Our story

As locals, who always lived in the city centre, we have witnessed the systematic disappearance of tiles, sacrificed to new urbanist trends. We felt that we should do something to preserve the tiles cultural identity, allowing the patterns to survive their creators.

A second iteration of this project emerges during our work in the family-owned business - a socks company.

By 2014, Oporto conquered its rightful place as a privileged touristic city. Tourists started to discover downtown and started visiting our family's retail store (located in the this part of town) attracted by our socks.

This context was the starting point for us to create an unique sales campaign, in which socks would pop-up as a souvenir "Made in Portugal", still without no graphic allusion to tiles, but as  product manufactured locally and representative of our industrial sub-culture.

Our shop window display featured a suitcase full of socks, framed by postcards written in different languages, extending the beauty of our town. There it was: a different way for travellers to surprise their loved ones and friends by offering them socks "Made in Porto"!

We felt that this successful pilot project  allied with our experience of the local textile industry created the needed momentum to finally enable the use our beloved tiles as a vehicle for  touristic  promotion. This is the story of how Sir Tile was born - an eclectic socks brand, with a strong and modern aesthetic, focused on culture identity.