Lounge
Fair Isle jumpers: The centuries-old history of a festive sweater
Summary
The Fair Isle jumpers with a classic knit, popular among celebrities and royals, originated on the remote island of Fair Isle in the 17th century
Selena Gomez brought bulky jumpers and oversized cardigans back to life as Mabel Mora in the true-crime show Only Murders in the Building and nothing screams winter like the vintage-inspired Fair Isle sweater. The traditional knit sweaters from the Shetland Islands in the UK have been trending for more than a century. Edward VIII was photographed in a Fair Isle jumper in 1921. Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay wore wearing Shetland jumpers when they summited Mount Everest in 1953. Famous Beatles star Paul McCartney was spotted in a Fair Isle jumper on a visit to Shetland in 1970. Princess Diana was snapped in a Fair Isle cardigan in the 1980s, while Emma Watson donned one for her turn as Hermione in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Last Christmas, Kate Middleton was snapped in a festive Fair Isle turtleneck as she added ornaments to a towering Christmas tree.
The intricate technique, which originated on the remote island of Fair Isle—home to barely 50 people now—has been practised for generations. The local legend goes that the El Gran Grifon was wrecked on Fair Isle in 1588, and the 17 households took the sailors in. The Spanish sailors are said to have taught the knitting technique to the island residents. That’s just a story. Evidence backs the fact that Fair Isle knitting has Scandinavian connections, a theory supported by the fact that the Shetland Islands were a Norwegian state before becoming part of Scotland in 1469.
Also read: Cooking to hiking, explore Mauritius beyond its beaches
Janette Budge, a true-blue Shetlander, knitwear designer and tutor, says it’s hard to put a date to the start of Fair Isle knitting. “Hard evidence of stranded knitting was discovered with the Gunnister Man, a body discovered on Shetland mainland in 1951. The body, dating to the late 17th or early 18th century, carried a stranded knitted purse. We don’t know if it was knitted in Shetland or not, but stranded knitting was there," she says. Europe was knitting back in the 15th century, and Shetland was on trade routes with Denmark, Faroe, Germany and Iceland from around 1468. Trade was brisk during the summer months with Shetland knitwear being sold or bartered. Knitting was mostly a task left to the women. The men typically went to sea or mended nets and made wooden items. By the mid-1700s, Fair Isle had made a mark with its distinctive knitwear. Islanders continued to barter homemade woollenwear—caps, stockings, jumpers, scarves—for tea, sugar and brandy.
Also read: Why hobbidays are the latest global travel trend
Budge says that before oil was discovered west of the islands in the 1970s, Shetland was generally an area of hardship. “Knitting was one of the cornerstones to keeping the family going, whether it was the earliest knitted plain stockings knitters made at home, the later Shetland fine lace in the 1800s or Fair Isle knitting," she says.
Like most island girls, Budge learnt to knit when she was a child, barely 6 years old. Having knitted for the most part of her life as a hobby, she explains what sets the technique apart: “Fair Isle knitting has its own distinctive style, often with an irregular hexagon style motif filled with crosses, diamonds and squares, and coupled with a large X alternating with the hexagon. This is often interspersed with small patterns, usually of one to five rows in height."
Fair Isle designs have, through centuries, followed geometric patterns, such as the crosses and hexagons of the popular Oxo pattern, along with symbols related to life on the islands, such as flowers and ram horns. “There has been some evolution with the addition of stars, flowers, sheep, and puffins. There has been a big change in colour as more colours have been developed by local wool companies," Budge says.
Many knitters moved to machines a few decades ago. “In the beginning, everything was knit by hand. When V-bed domestic knitting machines became available, all the plain and rib sections of a garment or accessory were knit on the machine and only the Fair Isle sections, like the yoke, were knit by hand," Budge says. The motifs could still be designed by the maker and yarns had to be changed manually when a colour change was needed. “Today, much fewer sweaters are completely hand knit but accessories such as hats, headbands, gloves, mittens, and fingerless mittens, are still available," she says. All processes, from shearing the sheep to milling and dyeing the yarn and finishing a piece, happen on the tiny island.
Budge is working with Shetland PeerieMakkers, a charity working to teach skills and techniques to children aged 8-11 years. She says knitting was part of the curriculum in Shetland schools for decades, but was one of the casualties of the education budget cuts in 2010. Shetland PeerieMakkers runs 18 groups in primary schools across the islands with volunteer tutors staying back after school. “The charity provides all equipment like needles and traditional knitting belts while Jamiesons of Shetland donates all the yarn needed. This helps to keep our traditions alive," she says.
What would be the price of a genuine, handknit Fair Isle sweater? Budge says it would vary, depending on the knitter and the yarn used. “It is hard to find someone who will knit a 100% hand-knitted sweater. Hand-frame, machine-knitted can be bought for £150-600 for a bespoke garment, depending on size," Budge says.
Teja Lele is an independent journalist who writes on lifestyle.
