What’s the most you would spend on a jumper?

[Backtonormalnow]

I was looking for some new knitwear on Next online as they do lots of different brands. I saw two I liked, one from All Saints at £139 and one from Reiss at £178. I would never pay that for a jumper! Plus they were hand wash which also puts me off as I never hand wash anything these days.

£40-£45 would be about my price range. Does anyone pay that much as the norm? Is the quality much different at that price?

I love clothes and fashion but trying not to spend too much this year for obvious reasons but want to get a few things for the winter which are practical and warm and will update my wardrobe a bit.

kind of a pointless question

🤔

I’d wanted to protest that I had no experience of bobbling, or shape-changing - so wrote out a list of the places from which I’d bought knitwear in the past five years. But - obscure brands. Apparently ridiculous prices. Deleted it.

I haven’t shrunk a woollen garment since 1995! What are some of you doing with your clothes?

(Bonus photo of just how I’d like to be wearing all my jumpers this season. Even to Tesco.)

I love love love jumpers and autumn/winter fashion and I just think it's worth spending a bit more for something that'll really last. I've got a few in the £100-£200 price range from Whistles, Ardmoor, Fjällräven, Celtic&Co etc. But I'm eternally cold and get a LOT of wear out of them so it feels justified!

Those who handwash wool, do you just dunk it in or swish, squeeze? I have messed up two Hush jumpers that were pricey by washing on the recommended 30degree wool cycle so I handwash now but am always terrified so minimise washing if I can at all and cross my fingers when I do have to.

i’m happy to pay above £100 for jumper. I always go with cashmere or wool. I paid £1100 for gucci cardigan. But i always taking care of my clothes. If you like it and have the money just go for it. High quality clothes last for ages.

My most expensive is a cashmere cardi that I never wear as looks like a rag .. Italian cashmere and very expensive.
I have an Eribe cardi in bright yellow which I absolutely love .. bright colours are cheering in winter.

I spent £300 on a beautiful cashmere jumper 3 years ago. It is the most expensive thing I have ever bought apart from my wedding dress. I hand wash it every few weeks and I have it dry cleaned at the end of the winter before putting it away. I reckon I wear it about once a week in the winter. It is so cosy and soft and warm.

Usually I would spend £50 to £70 or up to £100 for some cashmere.

@CountryCousin Your photo has just taken me right back to when I used to spend every spare penny I had buying Elle, Vogue and so on in the early 90's, read them from cover to cover and then cut out my favourite pictures to keep and hopefully recreate someday. Thanks for that 😊

(I too would like to wear my jumpers like the lady in the photo)

I remember those days, too, SocksAndTheCity. Though for me they stretched long before and after the 90s. The photo is from a random Insta account; I never see Elle these days and my Vogue consumption is reduced to an online subscription, which is just never as much fun as racing to the newsagent used to be.

I buy cashmere in the sale or second hand, never paid more than £60.
If not cashmere Uniqlo soufflé knits are fab £30 ish and don’t bobble.
I wash all jumpers by hand in Euclan, it’s anti moth and no rinse, no fabric conditioner needed either, I then spin them on low in the machine.

I use warm water and Eucalan wool wash. Swish about, pull out the plug. Gently squeeze the worst of the water out then dry flat over the bath on a weird laundry net thing I got for the purpose from Lakeland.

But really I don't wash a wool jumper very often. Probably only if it was visibly dirty.

I love knitwear. On average spend between £150-£200 an item. Good quality knitwear should be easy to take care of, air in between uses, a gentle hand wash occasionally, protect from moths. De-bobble now and then. And it’ll last for years and years.

These are the sort of shops I go to for knitwear:

Knotty Ones
Ami Amalia
Genevieve Sweeney
L’Envers
Babaa

You’re not just paying for the materials, but you’re also paying for craftsmanship (eg hand knitted or hand finished items) and fair labour conditions for the people that made the items.

Thanks so much AnnaMagnani I haven't heard of that detergent so will look at that
I have been doing the rest tho, with Woolite. It's the 'reshape while damp' that frightens me a bit! Washed 3 pieces successfully over the weekend at least!

Agree, Uniqlo is great.
You can at least remove the bobbles from natural fibres whereas acrylic can look awful within a few wears.

Re: washing, I hardly wash wool at all. I dpot-clean any visible stains, and only wash it if it smells sweaty.

If you want to refresh your wool, stick it in the freezer for a few days. Some of the bacteria is killed by freezing, and it also kills moths.

The laundry net thing makes 'reshape while damp' much easier as you are just moving the jumper about on a flat surface so it looks jumper shape.

My budget would be £40-45 for a real wool jumper that would last many seasons, but I'd be willing to wait for the sales for a classic number.

I am that person - I bought a sort of biscuit coloured huge chunky cardigan in the N Peal sale, £200 ish down from £500 ish and poured red wine down it on the first evening I wore it out. LUCKILY because it was so new, the cashmere sort of repelled the liquid which sat in balls on top while I squealed and tried to suck up each individual drop with corners of kitchen towel..

it was actually fine after that then my DH knocked a full cafetière over it the following week so…. I just wear it over my PJs now.

I'm sure I've spent £150 on a jumper but either designer or cashmere.

Probably around £50 because you can get some really lovely ones for that price, and I’m not convinced that quality improves as prices go beyond that. I’d pay up to £100 if I felt I really needed to, but often find what I like for much less.

Thank you for those links, @ChilliPB — I’ve fallen for the Knotty Ones’ Jura. That is insanely lovely.

Glad to help @LoupsGarous! I love the ethos behind the company itself as well and what they’re doing.

So enjoyed your links, ChilliPB! Only two of them were familiar to me so I have some new sources now. Including a great dress that would be more wearable everyday than the amazing but stupidly luxurious floor length Co (not Cos!) dress I stalked and caught in the N-a-P sale.

In exchange:

Colville
La Fetiche
Studio Nicholson
The Elder Statesman
Toogood
Yang Li

Are places from which I’ve bought stuff in the past few years. Sometimes only a beanie or camisole in the sales. Others I’m obsessed with and repeat buy.

My all time favourite cashmere beanie was from
Rosie Sugden. Lost on a train journey long after they’d stopped making that particular model. And one day, when I’m a proper grown up, I shall march into Queene & Belle and buy (almost) everything.

Jumpers are my favourite thing. If they aren’t acrylic, bobbles aren’t an issue as they just come off with a bobble comb which cost a couple of quid (Brora and Hush definitely sell them but am sure Amazon will as well). If they are acrylic I find bobble combs can make the jumper surface look worse. My experience of Fat Face jumpers is they look nice but turn in to terrible misshapen, bobbled rags because they are so often mainly man made fibres, definitely not good value for money.

I usually wear a top underneath so itchiness is also irrelevant. I normally wear for the best part of a week before washing, wool is antibacterial so generally doesn’t get smelly quickly (also because I wear something underneath).

I spent £225 on one I really wanted for my birthday the other day which was partially paid for by present money. Have got the price per wear down to about £10 a day so far as have hardly taken it off - am working on getting that lower. I only have one jumper I keep for “best” as the knit is a bit more delicate and I think the strands would get pulled more easily. That goes in a zipped bag. I like to make sure I wear the rest though as I don’t want to pull one out one day and find a moth has been happily chomping away to its heart’s content….

Buy wool wash, fill up your bathroom sink with cold water and gently swish the jumper in the wool wash. Swish again with clean water to rinse soap. Gently wring out the water the lay the jumper flat on a clean towel. Roll the towel up to press out remaining water. Lie the jumper somewhere flat to dry. Don’t put cashmere in the washing machine if you want it to last a long time!

I just wash in the machine on a short low spin cycle on a cold wash. We have 3 separate wash baskets - one for whites, one for colours and one for things that need to go on a cold wash and kept well away from the tumble dryer! DH did had a few accidents with my jumpers before this and there were tears 😂