History of Knitting in the United Kingdom - Essay Example

?The History of Knitting in the United Kingdom. Introduction The fashion industry in the UK has a long tradition and one of its most distinctive features is a preference for high quality knitted garments made from a variety of different yarns. British woollen garments, nowadays often made with mixed fibres partly sourced from other countries, are admired and imitated across the world and this is true of both hand knitted and machine produced designs. This paper traces the early history of knitting from its humble rural origins, providing necessary protection for outdoor workers, to the mass-production of factories in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and finally to the high fashion catwalks of the twenty-first century. This trajectory demonstrates two qualities of knitting: it is a highly practical, flexible and expressive art form which encourages creativity in design, and it has a deep cultural significance which uniquely combines tradition and modernity in British fashion. These two qualities have ensured thus far that knitwear will remain an important part of any fashion designer’s collection. Origins and early history. The origins of knitting as a hobby and as a fully-fledged industry are lost in the mists of time, and it is impossible to say with any certainty where it first began. The general consensus is that knitting may have been invented in the Middle East by nomadic peoples and have been brought to Europe along with traders in the early Middle Ages. (Hubert: 2010, p. 7) Earlier Roman socks dating from the first centuries AD were made by a knotting technique which is not fully understood by modern scholars, but it is agreed that these were not proper knitting. There are references to the activity in the United Kingdom from as early as AD 1100, and there is evidence of this in the Anglo Saxon verb cnytte which means “to join, fasten, or fuse with knotting” (Wilson: 1988, p. 6) This tallies with the earliest known true knitting samples which are cotton socks found in an Egyptian tomb dating from around 1000 AD, followed by plain, or knit stitch cushion covers in Muslim influenced Spain in 1275. (Hubert: 2010, p. 7) Countries in Northern Europe such as Scotland, Wales, Scandinavia, France and Germany all have long traditions of knitting, partly because the ready availability of high quality wool from sheep provides good raw materials and partly because their cool climates ensure a steady demand for warm garments. One advantage of knitting over weaving is that all of the processes from the gathering of the wool, to its cleaning, combing, spinning, knitting and sewing into a garment can be carried out in a small space such as a living room. Looms are large and unwieldy, while knitting can be done on wooden, or later metal needles, with minimal outlay in terms of equipment. From the very beginning cottage workers provided the backbone of the knitting industry and this is an important part of its appeal to wearers. Wearing a knitted garment can identify the wearer with a particular local community and this attribute is still a feature of woollen garments to the present day. Another advantage of traditional knitting over sewing techniques is that the manufacturer can tailor each garment to the wearer by modifying stitch numbers within a general pattern. This is a highly skilled, but extremely economical use of expensive yarns and ensures that the finished article has an excellent fit. It was not until the mid-sixteenth century that the purl stitch was invented and from then on techniques and styles diversified, with complex new stitches and patterns emerging in different regions of Europe. The geography of knitting in the UK: regional specialisms. Across the UK, different regions developed their own specialities in the production of knitwear. Even within one region, such as Scotland, there can be quite significant geographical segmentation because traditionally individual knitters develop their own unique styles and over time specialize more and more in these directions, with the end result that distinctive designs emerge around key production hubs. In the 1500s large sections of the population, both working classes and the aristocracy, were wearing woollen stockings, and even in such a simple garment there was wide regional variation, depending on the type of wool available: “Stockings made in Yorkshire were coarse and hard wearing and were worn by farm workers, soldiers and children. Welsh and Cornish stockings were similar. Finer worsted stockings from the Midlands were worn by merchants and townspeople.” (Bush: 1994, p. 17) For the very rich, silk was knitted, in a very fine guage of about twenty five stitches per inch (Hubert: 2010, p. 8) It is no coincidence that so many traditional knitting styles are connected with the fishing industry. This profession’s hardy workers needed clothing that protected them from the elements and nothing did this better than wool. One of the most popular early designs was the so-called “Gansey” sweater, named after the island of Guernsey where it was worn by fisherman. This round garment quickly spread all around the coasts and of all the British islands, and fishermen became skilled knitters to occupy their time while waiting for good weather to go out to sea. The design’s perfect alignment of form and function makes the gansey sweater an enduring classic in British design: “The wool is knitted tightly so as to "turn water"; the lack of seams ensures greater strength and impermeability; the underarm gusset allows freedom of movement; the lower sleeves where most wear is sustained, are left plain so the worn part can be unravelled and re-knitted, while the patterning across the chest provides extra insulation” (Gansey website, 2011) The design is also identical on the back and the front, allowing the wear and tear on sleeves, for example, to be reversed. An example of this rather plain working style in a practical dark colour can be seen in the following image of a Victorian Fisherman from the North East coast of England: Figure 1: A Robin Hood’s Bay Gansey Source: http://www.ganseys.co.uk/ Variations on the simple gansey style emerged across other important knitting centres in and around the British Isles including the Highlands and the Islands around Scotland, the Scottish borders, and Wales and very distinctive local patterns and styles evolved to suit the practical needs of the local population. In Ireland the knitters from Aran developed their own complex cabled styles using heavy yarn, again usually in one single colour and this has featured in fashion shows all through the twentieth century. The Aran look combines rugged practicality with intricate patterning and has been a favourite accompaniment to jeans for both male and female wearers, especially in white, which was originally regarded as a colour for formal occasions and reserved for the most intricate designs. The Fair Isle pattern of knitting is one of the most recognised patterns in the world and yet it stems from a tiny island no bigger than two miles by three miles just off the northern coast of Scotland. In this variation on the traditional gansey sweater, there is little or no cabling, but instead, there are colours worked into the garment in very fixed patterns. It appears to have been first knitted around 1850 and is characterised by “bands of geometric patterns using two or more colors but never more than two colors in one round, or circular row.” (Starmore: 1988, p. 4) Starmore points out that the Shetlanders took to knitting because their local breed of sheep produced a thick wool that was too soft for weaving but could be pulled by hand from the sheep without the need for shearing. Out of necessity grew a much admired art. It was very popular throughout the UK from the 1920s until the 1960s. (Starmore: 1988, pp. 5-8) Chapman (2002) describes the history of knitting in the East Midlands, tracing the origins of the industry at the end of the sixteenth century with large numbers of skilled workers who completed the items in their own homes until the technological inventions of the industrial revolution began to provide machinery located in large factories. Both men and women worked in this organised fashion. Almost any garment type can be made using knitting techniques, and with increased mechanisation using circular patterns, coats, dresses and even highly technical fibre glass and plastics for industrial purposes could be produced quickly and cheaply. It is not only production that influences the popularity of knitting. Retailers are extremely important in forming the fashion sense of the consumer, and Chapman describes for example the the importance of British retailers such as Marks and Spencer in sustaining the industry through the twentieth century until its slow decline in the late twentieth century in the face of competition mainly from the far east where labour costs were so much cheaper. Styles were practical and moderately priced, providing iconic classical designs such as ladies’ twin-sets and gentlemen’s cardigans for a large segment of the population. Problems arose for the producers when Marks and Spencer experienced difficulties in the late twentieth century and in the end over-dependence on this one retailer proved to be a disastrous strategy for the knitwear industry. (Chapman: 2002, pp. 261-262). In the UK today there are still some companies producing knitted goods for the high street markets but they are much fewer in number, and they face continuing pressure from discounters and imports. Luxury knitwear is, however, a very successful niche market, and British producers still export significant quantities of high end fashion knitwear. Some well- known British labels, like Pringle of Scotland, for example, have passed into foreign hands but the traditional styles continue to be produced in this new context. The cultural significance of knitting in the UK. While urban lifestyles in the modern world seldom leave time for knitting as hobby, there are some older knitting traditions which have survived in rural areas into the late twentieth century. Kohn describes a “Knitting Bee” which she studied as a participant observer in the 1980s and identifies “significant patterns of interactive style” which take place in these regular events. (Kohn, 2002, p. 150) The group consisted entirely of female members, and meetings were held in their living rooms on a roughly rotating basis. The women exchanged knitting patterns and spent the whole evening knitting together, with a short pause for home-made refreshments. This makes knitting a social occasion, and a chance to catch up on gossip and build friendships with neighbours and newcomers through this traditional craft. This lingering tradition recalls much earlier times when knitting was a source of income for women in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland but also illustrates how important the activity was from a social point of view and in terms of a woman’s individual and group identity: “Gossip, like the Bee itself, was an activity which promoted group cohesiveness” (Kohn, 2002, p. 153) Membership of the “Knitting Bee” was an important milestone for the author in learning to become an active part of that particular community. A similar experience is described by Domnick who recounts how a young woman in the 1970s married a fisherman in Filey and was bequeathed a host of cultural artefacts that had a great significance beyond their actual practical value: “Gina inherited the old steel needles (still treasured and in use today) and Mrs Hunter’s short written notes, and thus the right to regard those patterns as her property, a kind of copyright still respected by the knitters grown up in that tradition.” (Domnick: 2007, p. 7) This shows how the fishermen’s knitting tradition has passed mainly to the women of the family, and learning to knit in such traditional communities was a part of a woman’s preparation for marriage. Many of the features of fishermen’s sweaters have symbolic meanings: cables stand for the ropes on the boats, diamonds signify the mesh on their fishing nets, and horizontal lines signify the ladders leading down to the shores (Domnick: 2007, p. 8) For a time in 1960s and 1970s knitting was regarded in some circles somewhat negatively because of its connotations of feminine domesticity, which was at that time something feminists in particular were keen to move away from (Turney: 2009). Despite this, there were a few fashion trends in this period in the UK, including tank tops in bright colours worn on top of shirts with large collars, and long striped scarves, probably in imitation of the television character “Dr Who.” These garments were very simple to knit and even teenagers could imitate the fashion with the simplest of patterns and odd scraps of wool. At the same time there was an explosion of interest in other circles for all kinds of craft, and this was connected with the hippie movement which celebrated natural materials rather than the mass-produced synthetic factory outputs that had by then begun to dominate the retail scene. With the arrival of computerisation, some of the older styles were revived in updated form, and Turney cites Vivienne Westwood as a great adapter of Shetland knitwear for contemporary casual and high fashion wear in the 1980s. Knitting in the age of Technology: updating an ancient art. The long tradition of hand-knitting with its culture of individuality and tailoring to each individual wearer does not fit well with the modern mass markets. Modern manufacturers seek economies of scale and time-saving mechanisation but they still aspire to the “custom made” philosophy of older traditions: “Knitwear managers pursue differentiation relentlessly, most often along non-central attributes such as fibre and product types, distribution channels and knitting gauges, as well as through subtle gradation of quality and color” (Porac et al.: 1995, p. 224) The very first knitting machine was invented in by the Reverend William Lee in Nottinghamshire in 1589 and ever since then there has been constant improvement and refinement of all kinds of knitting machines, leading to massive expansion of the knitwear industry during the industrial revolution. New machinery and also new types of yarn were invented, culminating in the high tech computerisation of the late twentieth century. The first of these in the 1960s used magnetic tapes or punched cards to input the patterns and exploited the use of single bed flat machines. (Macqueen: 1962, p. 451) For the first time it became possible to manufacture whole garments mechanically without the need for time intensive cutting and sewing. As digitisation became more and more sophisticated, ever more complex designs could be transferred with greater ease to computerized systems. Such flexibility in modern manufacturing allows producers to switch from one-off designer pieces to large scale production runs depending on the current market requirement. The gap between high and low fashion production has therefore been significantly narrowed. In contemporary knitting it is often the quality of the yarns and the innovation of the design that distinguishes the different segments of the market rather than any pure distinction between hand-made and machine made, and indeed some of the machine produced garments are of significantly higher objective quality than hand-made ones. A modern knitting machine can produce a high quality finished sweater in forty five minutes (Jones: 2005,. p. 124) Knitwear in current fashion trends. High fashion returns again and again to classic knitwear shapes, and this can be seen in contemporary hand knitting desings. The very latest edition of the Vogue knitwear magazine, for example, revives the Victorian penchant for knitwear on the beach with its Spring/Summer 2011 collection: Figure 2: Vogueknitting, 2011. “Set off Sparks: Sexy is back with a shapely camisole that dares, bares and dazzles.” Source: http://www.vogueknitting.com/magazine/spring_summer_2011_fashion_preview.aspx#2 The elasticity of knitted fabrics makes them ideal for close fitting garments like this beachwear, and the contrast between ideas of warmth and cosiness which knitwear usually conveys is used hear as an ironic overtone, to add interest and novelty to the piece. Knitwear is also suitable for underwear and evening wear, so long as the yarn chosen is suitably fine, and extra properties such as breathability, or metallic sheen, or lacework effects are built in at the design stage. A good example is Weardowney hand knitted high fashion underwear such as this: Figure 3: Weardowney, spring/summer 2006 Source: Vogue.com http://www.vogue.co.uk/news/daily/2005-11/051129-get-weardowney.aspx The London based Weardowney company employs a combination of outsourcing and in house production which aims to reflect the best of ancient and modern working practices: “The ready-to-wear collection is made up in-house and by skilled hand knitters and their apprentices all around the UK.” (Conway and Downey: 2007, p. 13) The company makes a selling point of this traditional approach, and many consumers value this aspect because of the wastefulness and lack of imagination that is often apparent in chain store collections. Designers often exploit the apparent incongruousness of knitting traditions and ultra-modern concepts by adapting some but not all of the traditional design elements. The traditional white aran sweater, for example, is produced in a contemporary Lyle and Scott collection with a lighter 100% cotton yarn and a tiny logo to denote the label: Figure 4: Lyle and Scott Cable Knit Jumper, 2011. Source: http://www.selfridges.com/en/Menswear/Categories/Knitwear/Cable-knit-jumper_131-2000150-JE635V02/ Another classic, the cardigan, appears also in various forms in contemporary design but with modern twists as for example the following extra-long striped version in a linen/cotton mix: Figure 5: Elodie Cardigan. Source: Toast website, 2011. http://www.toast.co.uk/product/knitwear/CAAJ5/Elodie+Cardigan.htm?categoryref=/category.aspx%3fcategoryid%3dknitwear%26seoterm%3dknitwear%26&pcat=knitwear&adimage= This design dispenses with the traditional buttons and provides instead a knitted belt which allows the cardigan to be worn open or fastened. The cardigan is transformed from a rather staid garment into a fluid modern classic which takes advantage of the form-hugging knitwear style but adds a touch of movement in the long flaps at either side. High Street fashion can exploit modern dyes and computerized knitting techniques to achieve extremely colourful and inventive new variations on the traditional sweater, as for example this contemporary design from Hobbs: Figure 6: NW3 Good Spot Sweater (front) NW3 Good Spot Sweater (back) Source: http://www.hobbs.co.uk/index.cfm?page=1304&showall=true The rugged, sculpted forms of Aran can be adapted in high fashion garments to add texture to a garment and there are even imaginative used of this traditional feature in some accessories, as can be seen to good effect in this quirky item: Figure 7: Aran laptop bag by Irish design studio Superfolk. Source: http://mocoloco.com/archives/014008.php Conclusion: the past, present and future role of knitting in the UK. In this brief survey of the history of knitting in the UK we have seen how ancient traditions have been maintained in spirit, if not always in every specific detail, throughout many ground-breaking changes in the production methods and the yarns available. Local wools still have their place in the industry, but they are increasingly mixed with angora, cashmere and artificial fibres, or even replaced by linen and cotton yarns to improve the handling and wear of the garment. The old designs are also ever present, but modern designers adapt them to suit the more casual modern contexts in which the garments are worn. Sweaters on the catwalks do not need to withstand the hardships of the open sea, but they lovingly recall these robust and manly earlier times for current menswear collections, and they use many aspects of the original concept in women’s collections too. The ability of knitwear to mould to the human body in a sculptural as well as linear way ensures that it will always have an important place in British fashion history. There is room for both industrial and hand-knitting types of production in a market that sees itself reborn in every generation with dynamic variations on the old traditional themes. References Barty-King, H. 2006. Pringle of Scotland and the Hawick Knitwear Story. Shrewsbury: Quiller Press. Bush, N. 1994. Folk Socks: The History and Techniques of Handknitted Footwear. Loveland, Co: Interweave Press. Chapman, S.D. 2002. Hosiery and Knitwear: Four Centuries of Small-Scale Industry in Britain c. 1589-2000. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Compton, R. 1986. The Complete Book of Traditional Guernsey and Jersey Knitting. London and New York: Prentice Hall. Conway, H. and Downey, G. 2007. Weardowney Knit Couture. London: Collins and Brown. Dawson, P. 1982. Aran and Fair Isle Knitting. Singapore: Marshall Cavendish. 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