The winter fashion is double knitwear. All you can do is hope for cold weather and turn down the heating.
The winter fashion is double knitwear. All you can do is hope for cold weather and turn down the heating.
It has been every man’s nightmare since his grandmother made him one when he was a toddler: the knitted jumper.
Heavy, thick and above all, very, very hot. In the worst case, it also has a polo neck so that you really sweat in it. And the trendiest jumpers of the season actually often do have a polo neck. As if one is not enough: at Tom Ford and Belstaff you’re supposed to wear even more knitwear over knitwear to keep you extra warm. It was of course sensible long ago, for sailors of the Channel Islands for example, who went to sea despite strong wind and rain to feed their families. The islands’ inhabitants imported wool from England, turned it into knitted goods and then exported them to France as early as the 15th century.It was a good business and made the women of the Channel Islands excellent knitters. For their men who worked in cold weather, they even knitted two pullovers for the long winters: a finer-knit “Jersey” as an undergarment and, on top of that, a coarser-knit overgarment known as a “Guernsey”.
Such a combination is quite a problem nowadays because of our excellent central heating systems, unless, of course, you want to quickly sweat off a couple of excess pounds. But the last thing we want to do is put you off your new layered look with pullovers – after all, thick knitwear is very recommendable, if not for practical, then at least for visual reasons. Soft wool can turn city boys into hard men – if you don’t overdo it.
If you lay the knitwear on thick you shouldn’t go over the top with the colours, and a bulky pullover goes best with slim trousers. Combine with sturdy boots and, for example, a parka because every man should have one in his wardrobe this winter anyway. Ideally, buy a parka with removable lining so that you can easily wear two knitted pullovers in the cold November rain and still be well protected from the wet. And if you do start sweating, the close-fitting pullover “for underneath” will certainly not look bad worn on its own.
