Photos by Salt Water New England |
For centuries, knitters in the Shetland Islands have been producing distinctively patterned jumpers. These designs first appeared on one Shetland Island, Fair Isle. Some say the designs evolved from Spanish patterns (a Spanish vessel was shipwrecked on Fair Isle in 1588). Others believe, given Fair Isle is just 250 miles west of Norway, the patterns were more Scandinavian in influence. The designs spread across the Shetland Islands, where they have been more widely knit since at least the end of the 19th century
In the early 1920s, Shetland dealer James A Smith gave an (all-over) Fair Isle jumper to then Prince of Wales. The iconic image of the fashionable Prince, later Edward VIII, wearing it playing golf instantly made all-over Fair Isle jumpers popular.
Fair Isles had many things going for them following WWI, not the last of which being the revolution in the role of women. Woman earning and spending their own money led to the demise of corsets and lace knitting. Gender-neutral styles, such as Shetland jumpers, were in.
"The original Fair Isle sweaters [had] colors drawn from natural dyes, and the rich patterning used lavishly across the whole sweater." (New York Times, March 13, 1983). But the all-over approach was painstaking. To satisfy the growing demand worldwide in the following decades, authentic Shetland styles soon compromised to the significantly easier but still beautiful yoke-only approach design.