What is Christmas without a festive sweater? Since the Eighties, brightly coloured jumpers with holiday motifs have become synonymous with the season — now, they’re just as likely worn to work as they are to a party. So engrained are they within the modern, cultural psyche of what constitutes a British Christmas, that the iconic festive film, Love Actually, is essentially an homage to the Christmas jumper, with countless intarsia motifs and cable knits.
As a garment, the festive sweater actually originated centuries ago in Norway. Shepherd’s wives, keen to utilise the wool from their home-reared flocks, hand-knit sweaters to keep their families warm and dry during the cold, harsh winters — and over time, they got creative with the patterns, introducing Nordic north stars, diamonds, snowflakes and zig zags that later became the epitome of winter chic on the ski slopes.
The festive jumper’s endurance is arguably unparalleled. But it’s lamentable that most contemporary examples are so novelty-driven that they fail to feel appropriate to wear outside of the typical December window. At John Smedley, we believe knitwear has a year-round place within the wardrobe, and a festive sweater should be no less wearable than your favourite, failsafe knit.
Enter: John Smedley’s limited-edition festive sweater, designed with Sheffield-based wood carver John Pedder. This year, we partnered with the craftsman to create a seasonal knit that aligned with our timeless ethos — one that mixes whimsy with wearability, which has just the right amount of novelty to feel special at Christmastime, but which will prove to be wearable from September through to March. Blending time-honoured traditions with actual timelessness, our Christmas Jay Bird sweater is thoughtfully designed to be pulled out of the closet again and again.
The sweater features an enlarged Jay bird motif — the design for which was hand-carved by John Pedder on an old floorboard he discovered during a tour of John Smedley’s headquarters in Lea Mills, taken from the earliest parts of the factory. The utilisation of the cherry wood factory floor was a meaningful gesture of craft: according to John, using our old floor as the starting point “roots the collaboration… into the very fibres”. It also pays homage to the “rich heritage” of John Smedley, says Pedder, who was moved by the notion that our factory workers from across the centuries would have walked across these old floors. “It was a no-brainer to use that historic timber,” he says.
John spent three days hand-carving the Jay bird into the floorboard, which was then turned by John Smedley’s in-house knitters into an intarsia pattern. The bird itself has meaning to John Smedley. Since the 1800s, it’s been used as a symbol in brand regalia, from stamps to being rendered three-dimensional, in brass, as well as printed on John Smedley labelling. The bird design was first hand-sketched, on paper, by John, before being carved into wood. The pattern was then turned into 240 limited-edition prints — in line with our 240th birthday, these special prints will be available to buy online and in store — before being given to the knitwear design team to turn into a wearable work of art.
“The carving was scanned into our design software,” says Jess McGuire Dudley, John Smedley’s Deputy Managing Director, who spearheaded this partnership with John. “Our knit programming team was able to manipulate the design so it could be knitted perfectly as per the carving, to even include the imperfect lines of the hard carving — it ensures it keeps it authentic,” she says, and true to the nature of the artistry. Adds John: “They were able to mimic the cuts of the knife using a completely different medium, guided by different craft skills.”
Each knit then underwent John Smedley’s signature, 35-step process to be turned into a sweater: a meticulous process that respects the craft and specialness of knitwear, and simultaneously celebrates the brand’s manufacturing prowess, which has been continually tinkered with, to perfect it, over the decades.
And while wool is a world away from the robust materials John Pedder is usually working with, he is familiar with this tactile fibre. “My grandmother, mother, auntie and daughter are, or were, skilled knitters, so the clacking of needles has been with me for as long as I can remember,” he says. “It means so much to have my work translated into knitwear. Knitwear and woodcut printmaking share the need to simplify things. In doing so, there is a shared need to interpret what is essential to a design.”
Sharing is important to keep the world of British craft alive. Shared knowledge, and pooling resources, fosters creativity — it broadens horizons, for people, including craftspeople, to see works in other ways or expose it to new audiences. “It’s essential that British craft industries collaborate,” says John Pedder. “It cements our reputation as great makers, and that cross-fertilisation can only strengthen the cause.”
Jess agrees. “It’s important to us here at John Smedley to champion creativity and craft, which engages new audiences into old and new forms of artistry,” she says. “It helps people to better understand the importance of craft skills, and partnering with different artists gives us a fun and interesting way to continually reinterpret our own archive. It’s incredible to see it through the lens of other, contemporary artists.” Each sweater will come with a hand-carved stamp on the tag, also made using wood from the factory. Each tag is a piece of our history; another piece of exquisite craft.
The John Pedder for John Smedley Jay Bird sweater is available now in Jay Blue, Redwood and Bordeaux. And the jumper, says Jess, stays true to the nature of both crafts. “There’s longevity in the garment and the design — it’s not just for Christmas, but it can be worn with pride for years to come, and, being crafted from merino wool, it will last for many years, too.”
