I have bought jumpers my whole life. This is the first one I am writing a letter about
I have bought jumpers my whole life. This is the first one I am writing a letter about
Six things the Ardent gets right that high-street knitwear gets wrong, from a woman who does not review clothes.
Pat Holloway · Customer · Leeds · 5 min read
Let me be plain about who is talking. I am Pat, I am 68, I live in Leeds, and I have never in my life sat down to write about a jumper. What I have done is buy them, a lifetime of them, and watch most bobble, sag or itch their way to the charity bag by spring. So this is not a review. It is a woman who was wrong about a jumper, saying so.
The one I am writing about is called the Ardent, from Manchester Boutique, a small British boutique that has been quietly dressing women our age for a few years now. I first saw it on the woman who has the appointment before mine at the hairdresser’s, and when the boutique later asked if they could put my letter up for others to read, I said yes, on the condition I could be completely honest in it.
I had assumed hers was hand-knitted. Craft fair, three figures, clever sister with needles. It is £39.95 and comes in a bag. Read on.
Here is what a lifetime of knitwear taught me. Jumpers come in two piles. The pretty pile, patterned and promising, which itches at the neck, weighs a ton, and bobbles into disgrace by Christmas. And the sensible pile, plain, safe, and so dull you disappear in it from October to March. I have bought from both piles for decades and never once been stopped in the street.
Pretty but itching by lunchtime, or sensible and invisible. Those were the knitwear options, and I had done my years in both.
The Ardent is the first jumper I have owned that is neither, and having worn it most days for a fortnight, I can tell you it comes down to six things.
The morning it arrived. I ordered it expecting to send it back. It has not left the rotation since.
The pattern is knitted in, not printed on
Look closely at the yoke and you can see every stitch. The pattern is worked into the knit itself, the old way, not printed on the surface like so much of what the high street sells now. That is why it looks hand-made from across a hairdresser’s, and why it will not crack, peel or wash away. You can feel the difference with your eyes shut.
The yoke up close. Every motif is made of stitches, not ink.
You can see the stitches in the pattern. My mother knitted, and she would have approved of this one.
Barbara L., RiponIt is warm without the weight
My warmest jumpers have always been the ones that wear me out. This one is properly warm, the sort you notice when you step outside, yet it weighs next to nothing on. I have worn it on the cold school run and indoors at the supermarket without cooking. Warm and light is the whole trick, and hardly anyone manages it.
Warm as my old chunky one at half the weight. I forget I have it on, then I go outside and I am glad I do.
Jean W., BeverleyIt does not itch, even at the neck
The neck is where knitwear loses me. This one has a soft rolled edge instead of a scratchy band, and the whole jumper is soft against bare skin, no shirt required underneath. I wore it against my neck all day on the first outing, waiting for the prickle. It never came.
The cuff and the little zigzag band above it. Soft, thick and not a scratch in it.
I am the itchiest woman in Yorkshire and I wear this with nothing under it. That has not happened in years.
Sylvia D., ThirskThe yoke does the jewellery’s job
The colours across the shoulders, rust and gold and cream on that soft green, sit exactly where a necklace would. You put it on over plain trousers and you are dressed, finished, done. I have stopped reaching for the beads when I wear it, because the jumper has already made the effort.
Trousers, this jumper, out the door. People think I have made an effort. The jumper made it, not me.
Margaret P., HalifaxIt is cut easy and the sizing is honest
Relaxed through the middle, hip length, so it sits over the waistband and reports nothing to anyone. And the sizes run from a 6/8 right up to a 22/24, real sizes that fit like the label says. I ordered my usual and it fit my usual, which sounds a small thing and is actually the whole battle.
Ordered my normal size after years of sizing roulette. Fits exactly as it should, skims everything.
Anne F., PontefractIt washes and comes out the same jumper
Two washes in, no bobbles, no sagging, the colours in the yoke exactly as they arrived. It is easy care in the real sense, no hand-wash ceremony, no drying flat for three days over the bath. A jumper you can actually live in, wash, and wear again by the weekend.
On the wardrobe door after its second wash. Same jumper as day one.
Washed it twice already. It looks brand new, which is more than I can say for anything else I bought last autumn.
Kathleen M., WakefieldThe Ardent, against the jumpers you have been buying
You can find a patterned jumper for forty-odd pounds on any high street. I know, because I own the evidence. Here is the difference, laid out plainly.
Pattern printed on, cracks and fades
Warm ones weigh a ton, light ones do nothing
Scratchy neckband, shirt needed underneath
Bobbled and sagging by Christmas
Sizes stop where many of us start
Pattern knitted in, stitch by stitch
Properly warm at next to no weight
Soft rolled neck, nothing needed under it
Washes and comes out the same jumper
Honest sizing, 6/8 to 22/24
About the price
The Ardent is £39.95 at the moment. It was £80.00.
I will pass on what the boutique told me, which is that this is the first knitwear run of the season and each run is made in one batch, so once a run has gone it is gone. Their words, not mine. What I can tell you from my side is that half price is usually where I start asking what is wrong with something, and I have been looking for a fortnight and not found it.
And I do not trust perfect scores, so I read the reviews before I ordered. Just over three hundred of them, sitting at 4.2 stars, which sounded like real people rather than robots, so I read on. The same six things I have just walked you through come up in them, over and over, in other women’s words.
Folded on the hall table, ready for tomorrow. Which is how most days go now.
If your knitwear drawer is a museum of jumpers that promised and bobbled, this is the one I would put in your hands myself, while your size is still there. Stop dithering and go and look.
Pat
ARDENT | Classic Vintage Knit Sweater
- Nordic yoke pattern knitted in, stitch by stitch
- Properly warm at next to no weight
- Soft rolled neck edge, no itch, nothing needed under it
- Relaxed hip-length cut that skims the middle
- Washes easily and keeps its shape
- UK sizes 6/8 to 22/24
- FREE UK delivery & 100% happiness guarantee
First knitwear run of the season, going now. The middle sizes go first.