Pure Extra Fine Lamsbwool Crew Neck Jumper

Luxury and quality at a great price. Fits perfectly

Quality, fit & colour is good. Partner was very pleased.

This is a good garment if you can get one that fits. The 100% wool yarn seems good, the knitting good, make-up is satisfactory. This year’s colours are good. The neck is not too big – a common problem with jumpers and tee shirts these days. Sizing though – the now almost universal problem for clothing retailers, is hopeless. According to the size guide I should need a size medium. That conflicts with my decades of wearing M&S knitwear because I have always worn size small. That’s because I am small by anyone’s measure. 5ft6, 32 waist, 40 chest. Typical old Brit. I bought a size medium, it was huge. Far to wide, far too long and the sleeves were so long it was comical. What were you going for, turn-back cuffs but forgot a few details? I returned that and ordered a size small. It duly arrived and the fit was great. I decided to buy another colour and it arrived but was far smaller than its counterpart. I spent the first half of my working lifetime in the clothing and knitwear industry. This type of knitwear is called fully-fashioned. That has nothing to do with current trends or fashion in the usual sense. It means the garment panels and knit to shape on a machine with selvedge both sides of each panel and widenings and narrowings to form the shape. Both size small in the same gauge and yarn should have the same number of wales (on single bed fabric each wale is formed by one needle) at the same point on every panel knit. I counted the wales across the body of my two differing size smalls. The smaller one was missing 18 wales per body panel. The result in relaxed fabric was the loss of about 50mm in chest size. I did not count the sleeve wales, but the result would be of similar effect because the sleeves were much tighter than the other size small. This all proves that M&S, like every other retailer, has lost control of the quality shipped by its manufacturers. There should be no size difference in two colours of the same item. My other bugbear is this. M&S do not put size small men’s sweaters in store now. I have to order them online. I cannot try before I buy. I have to buy and repeatedly trail back and forth into town returning things that do not fit. So far, I have ordered three, been back into town twice and have ended up with just one sweater. My nearest M&S is a 32 mile round trip. This buying online gets very analogue and very expensive very quickly. To make matters worse I have the same problem with trousers. M&S no longer put size 32 waist straight or regular fit trousers in store. I have to order online. Same routine, order return etc. Sizing on trousers is also random. Why, may I ask are 32short trousers so high in the rise? Someone with a 29” in-leg is not going to be 6ft4. His waist was where you seemed to know it would for decades but have lost the knowledge. I can only conclude that the M&S selectors and technical teams are just non-cognate these days and that quality control has been sacrificed for extra margin. I summary though, the jumper is fine if you can find on that fits.

So disappointing. We have been buying this men’s jumper in 100% wool but it has become thinner over the years and this year the wool feels totally recycled…stiff, hard and thin. No softness at all. An old one from the cupboard was so much better quality.

Returned one which was not the colour required. Excellent service and new one delivered quickly. Lovely colour good price and fits well

Nice and warm and easy to wear. Good colour, good price and delivered quickly.