Fairisle British-Made Men's Jumpers — Voted by the Community

The jumper, a knitted garment pulled on over the head, grew out of Britain's long history of knitting. Knitted woollen caps were being made by the fifteenth century, and in 1589 William Lee, a curate at Calverton in Nottinghamshire, invented the stocking frame, the first knitting machine. Framework knitting became the speciality of the East Midlands, and by the nineteenth century Leicester and Nottingham were its largest centres. In Scotland, a merchant brought stocking frames to Hawick in 1771, and the Borders grew into a centre for hosiery and later knitwear, including cashmere. Coastal and island traditions added their own styles. The guernsey, or gansey, a close-knit fisherman's jumper named after the Channel Island, was knitted and worn in fishing communities around the British coast. Fair Isle colourwork from Shetland became fashionable after the Prince of Wales wore Fair Isle jumpers in public in 1921. By the twentieth century the jumper was a familiar part of British dress, and today's British-made jumpers continue these regional knitting traditions.