Fair Isle Knitwear
The very first thing anyone should understand is there is only one legitimate place from whence Fair Isle Sweaters come, and that is Fair Isle in the Shetland Islands, Scotland. Reputedly influenced (doubtful) by Spaniards shipwrecked on Fair Isle in 1588, by 1850 the knitters on Fair Isle were famous for their brightly coloured, patterned knitwear. Only three miles long by 1½ miles wide, roughly rectangular in shape, the island has a current population of around 70 and its intricately patterned knitwear is still produced by their co-operative, Fair Isle Crafts. That said ANY sweater you see at the local mall or in a catalogue or that you decide to knit out of a pattern book is a Fair Isle ‘style’ and NOT a Fair Isle Sweater. If this were any European Union country, instead of a tiny island, the legal community would be all over protecting this authentic ‘brand’ as they protect their sparking wines, cheeses, and hams. It would please us enormously if royalties were paid to knitters in the Shetlands for their intellectual property each time a knit item patterned after a Fair Isle was sold regardless of origin country.
A Shetland woman (or man) spending more than 110 hours (to make a full size sweater), applying more than sixty years of hand knitting skills, still earns about £65. Yet, native born Scotsman made (really) good, fashion designer Alexander McQueen realises £240 for a Fair Isle style sweater made on a machine, in Italy and of merino wool. What’s equally important is that the purchase of Mr. McQueen’s or any other ‘label’ offering ‘Fair Isle style’ fosters the further decline of the Shetland economy and an irreplaceable loss of a piece of Scotland’s rich cultural heritage. That’s why Thistle & Broom commenced its Fair Isle Knitting Project.
The Fair Isle Knitting Project is designed to ensure the preservation of, and provide fair market pricing for, authentic Fair Isle hand knitting. 66% of the retail price is paid in full, up front, to each knitter when we sell one of their hand knit Fair Isle jumpers. Women in their seventies and eighties, whose families have lived throughout the Shetland Islands for hundreds of years, are who hand knit the Fair Isle offered by Thistle & Broom. Their art features authentic historic patterns featuring two colours in each row, forming bands of amazingly intricate examples of Peeries, XOX, Borders, Seeding, Waves and Peaks, Norwegian Stars, and Allover. Passed from generation to generation, knit for hundreds of years of soft, light Shetland wool, paint box coloured or knit from yarns of naturally coloured wool each extraordinary in workmanship, colour use and a hand craft which is deserving of your appreciation and patronage.
