Jumpers/Sweaters … call them what you will - they’re fun!
Soon after Gyles Brandreth founded the National Scrabble Championships in 1971, someone gave him a jumper featuring a Scrabble board as part of its design. Gyles wore the jumper on TV and quickly realised that on TV what you wear gets more attention than what you say. Through the 1970s and 1980s he wore more than a thousand different jumpers on TV, many of them designed by George Hostler (1939-2018), who also designed knitwear for Diana, Princess of Wales, and Elton John.
When Gyles went into politics in the 1990s, he stopped wearing the jumpers, but all these years later people still remember them. Over the years, he has auctioned scores of them for charity, but he still keeps a few favourites hidden in the basement. In the 1980s he was a director of the New for Knitting hand-wool shops and published several books of knitting patterns. In 2014, with his daughter Saethryd, he published Novelty Knits, a collection of thirty-five of his favourite jumpers, modelled by family and friends. In 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic, on the basis that ‘desperate times call for desperate measures’, Gyles brought some of his favourite jumpers out of the closet and shared a jumper-a-day (and a poem-a-day) with his followers on Twitter (@GylesB1) and on Instagram (@gylesbrandreth).
Through 2023, the Petersfield Museum and Art Gallery had a special exhibition celebrating Gyles’ jumpers. Petersfield is in Hampshire in the UK. Discover more here: https://petersfieldmuseum.co.uk
Watch out for news of GYLES FOR JUMPERS, a sweater brand to reckon with, coming soon.
Gyles for JUMPERS
I like to think GYLES is British knitwear with a sense of humour. I’m proud to say my jumpers (some call them sweaters) have been favourites with pop-stars and royalty since the 1980s, counting Princess Diana and Elton John among the fans. More recently Kim Kardashian, Pete Davidson, and the cast of Curb Your Enthusiasm have been spotted wearing them. The designs — including the famous “I’m A Luxury” sweater — are the creations of George Hostler, artist and sculptor, and, yours truly, Gyles Brandreth, founder of Britain’s Teddy Bear Museum. GYLES is a unisex brand (natch), and YOU will be able to have your favourite design for yourself very soon. Just watch this space.
