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A Guide to Shackleton Knitwear
The Knitwear Guide
Every Shackleton knit starts with the fibre. The right yarn decides how warm a garment is, how it handles sweat and weather, and how long it lasts. It is why the crew of the Endurance trusted wool over a century ago, and why we still build from natural fibres today.
This guide covers the two fibres at the heart of our knitwear and base layers, cashmere and merino, the expedition heritage our heavyweight knits are modelled on and the British craft involved in majority of
// GUIDE TO FIBRES
Merino
Merino is nature's performance fabric. Worn next to the skin, it warms you in the cold and cools you when you're working hard.
Where it comes from. Selective breeding of Spanish and North African sheep produced a prized wool that spread through Europe and on to Australia, where the fibre became finer and more uniform. Even so, merino makes up less than 1% of the materials people wear.
For hot, active days. Our merino/Tencel blend (56% Tencel, 37% merino, 7% elastane) feels cooler in use and blocks 98.9% of UVA and 99.5% of UVB rays.
Why Merino works?
- Insulating: up to 30 crimps per inch trap air close to the body.
- Soft: each fibre is around a third the diameter of a human hair.
- Moisture-managing: absorbs about 30% of its weight in liquid before it feels wet.
- Odour-resistant: naturally antibacterial and non-allergenic.
- Packable: resists creasing and springs back into shape.
- Safer: resists static and is more fire-safe than synthetics.
// GUIDE TO FIBRES
Heritage Knitwear
Looking back at the black and white images taken by pioneer photographer Frank Hurley during the 1914-17 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, the unforgiving conditions and stark nature of the frozen continent are instantly apparent.
The stranded crew, against all odds, pulled off a remarkable feat of survival that has gone down as one of the greatest in history. This was in large part due to the leadership of Ernest Shackleton but also they survived because they had the most advanced outdoor clothing of the time, built to endure sub-zero temperatures – Hurley’s photos show the motley crew clad head to toe in thick fur gloves, gabardine cotton jackets, cavalry canvas trousers and chunky wool-knit sweaters.
The latter were of particular importance and back then, sweaters were usually made over-sized and then washed and boiled down so that they shrunk to shape. The result was that they not only acted as an insulating layer, but they were incredibly windproof – highly-valuable assets when spending months in Antarctica.
Our range features knitwear inspired by the sweaters worn by Ernest Shackleton and his crew. These sweaters are a modern, softer take on the great heritage sweaters of old; built for survival then, built for survival now. Just with a refined touch of luxury.
// GUIDE TO FIBRES
Cashmere
The cashmere fibre comes from goats which are found in the cold, dry, tough terrains of Central and East Asia. In fact, the terrain for which these goats are best adapted is so inhospitable that they are found in only 12 countries around the world. A large proportion of high-quality cashmere is grown in the territory sandwiched between India, Pakistan, and China where the world's highest peaks, such as Mount Everest (29,029 ft/8,848 m) and K2 (28,251 ft/8,611 m) stretch to the skies.
Under the coarse, protective outer coat of a goat lies the soft cashmere underfleece which is gathered in spring when the goats naturally shed their winter coats using a process of combing. It takes a single goat one year to produce enough cashmere for a scarf.
Overgrazing by cashmere goat herds in certain parts of the Mongolian and Chinese grasslands is causing soil erosion and degradation to the habitat. For that reason wherever possible we select post-consumer recycled cashmere as a more sustainable option.
The Caird Cashmere Sweater is knitted from 97% recycled cashmere and 3% merino, with reinforced elbow patches.
Why Cashmere works?
- Cashmere fibre is ultra-fine, with a diameter of 15-19 microns (one sixteenth of the diameter of a human hair), which makes it very soft. In comparison most English wool, like that which would have been used to knit Shackleton’s expedition sweaters, is between 29 and 35 microns in diameter.
- The cashmere fibre is cylindrical with a crimped texture which creates loft and a very soft finish, which may even display a touch of luster. It is one of the only hollow fibres in the world which makes it very light in weight and significantly warmer than sheep’s wool.
The History of Cashmere
The earliest documented usage of cashmere dates back to the 14th century. The word cashmere comes from Kashmir, which originally referred to a high valley between two mountain ranges of the Himalayas on the Indian subcontinent, but today refers to the - politically disputed - territory between India, Pakistan, and China.
The term was coined in the 16th Century and was used to describe the shawls spun by Kashmiri craftsmen on the Silk Route bound for India. By the late 18th century, cashmere shawls were being exported from Kashmir and India to the West, particularly to Britain and France. Cashmere first arrived in Paris and quickly became the most sought after and expensive status symbol of the time.
Today Northern China produces about half to two-thirds of the world's cashmere. Mongolia, Tibet and Afghanistan have also been the sources of significant quantities of cashmere with additional bulk amounts coming from central Asia, Iran, Australia, and New Zealand.
British Made Knitwear
Wool has been the explorer's choice for centuries. It's natural, warm even when wet, biodegradable, non-allergenic, breathable and quick-drying. And while much of our technical expedition gear would have been unrecognisable to Sir Ernest & crew, the same does not apply to traditional knitwear.
Since the sweaters worn by Sir Ernest and crew were British-made, in crafting today’s knitwear we keep as close as possible to the same tradition. The majority of our knitwear is made on the isles from which the Endurance set sail.
Near-shoring our manufacture brings threefold benefits. First, it aligns with the respect for the environment so central to our mission. Next, it supports British industry and helps sustain time-honoured craftsmanship. Best of all, we’ve found that this is where these sweaters come out best. The traditional methods used by our chosen partners, using construction techniques that reduce both friction and waste, are intrinsically more sustainable than more mass-produced alternatives. They also require more finishing by expert hands, itself a built-in stage of quality control.
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