Commander of keeping warm

In which G.M. Norton plays toy soldier

There’s something indescribably comforting about pulling on a warm jumper on a cold day.

At the moment, my personal style is evolving towards two looks - university professor and gentlemanly explorer. For the university professor look, it’s all about the tweed, bow ties and glasses with lots and lots of texture. The explorer look is about thick jumpers, coats and a sturdy pair of boots. Of course, there will be crossover from time to time.

As part of the adventurer chic I’m going for, I bought a Woolly Pully commando style navy jumper from a UK company called Outdoor Knitwear. Based in Leicester, Outdoor Knitwear produce the Woolly Pully for the military and government.

As the name would suggest, Outdoor Knitwear specialise in knitwear suitable for the outdoors. Good eh?

The Woolly Pully has been a long serving piece of military clothing, worn by servicemen in all armed forces. It developed from the wartime v-neck jumper, with the wool lovely and heavy and reinforced material at the elbows, forearms and shoulders. It’s been more or less in the same style since the 1960s.

If you were in the military, the reinforcement and shoulder straps would allow for insignia and rank to be added. I don’t have much need for that!

The jumper is quite long and narrow, but in a pleasing way. I simply adore rolling up the cuffs. If it’s particularly cold, I then pull them down for a little extra warmth. Perfect. The roll-neck is pleasingly long too and is not itchy at all (although my face is protected by an over-enthusiastic chin badger). I have worn the jumper both with and without an undershirt and it wasn't itchy when directly against my skin.

The Woolly Pully is a truly iconic garment. It’s simply one of the most popular pieces of clothing issued to the military in the last 60 years. As they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, which is just as well as the Woolly Pully style jumper has been adopted by security firms, the police and even the foreign military.

For a jumper that is made of 100% British wool, it is an absolute snip at £43.95 (although prices seem to have increased slightly, I paid £40.99).

I definitely intend to return to Outdoor Knitwear for more knitwear.

G.M. Norton

Protagonist of 'Norton of Morton'

{ Twitter } { Facebook } { Instagram } { Bloglovin' }