Wool has been a staple fabric for hard-wearing outdoor clothing for centuries. Although it went out of fashion for a while in recent decades, its been making a comeback in recent years. As one example, Prometheus Design Werx recently released their updated take on a classic Mountain Shirt design. The US Army is also currently experimenting with various special lightweight wool-blend fabrics for camouflage combat uniforms – yes, seriously, look here.
On the other hand, while fashions come and go, some classics never really go out of style. One of my favourite classic styles is the ‘Woolly Pully’ or ‘Commando’ sweater. Back in the ’80’s when I was in the Army, we had a black v-neck Woolly Pully that was authorized for wear with the Class B Dress Uniform. The USMC also had the classic crew-neck olive green Woolly Pully for their version of Class B’s (which is also still an authorized wear item too it seems). In the 82nd Abn. Division the crew-neck olive green Woolly Pully was quite popular as a mid-layer under our BDU tops in the winter as well.
While I was reading up on the US Army’s new affinity for wool and also checking out the Wilderness Utility Top from Prometheus Design Werx, I got thinking about those old Wooly Pully sweaters and how much I loved the ones I had back in the day. So I jumped on Google and went looking to see if they were still available anywhere…
USMC specification Woolly Pully sweaters in Olive Green and Navy Blue are available from ‘The Marine Shop’ at www.marineshop.net
After some further filtering of the search results, I found a company in the UK called ‘Outdoor Knitwear’ that makes a whole range of high-quality, 100% wool ‘Woolly Pully’ sweaters (or ‘jumpers’ as they’re called in British English). Best of all, their prices were quite reasonable AND they ship worldwide. All of their sweaters are also Made in The UK to the original MoD specification, and also use only 100% genuine British Wool. Outdoor Knitwear is also an official supplier of these sweaters to the British Armed Forces.
The model I chose is their “Chatham Woolly Pully Roll Neck Sweater” in olive green. The Chatham has all the standard features of the classic crew-neck version, but with the added warmth and panache of a roll neck (aka, ‘turtleneck’).
Check out the full range of Outdoor Knitwear’s Woolly Pully Jumpers here.