Christmas jumper sales kick-start the Christmas shopping season online

Searches for ‘Christmas jumper’ skyrocket 136% in early November after John Lewis Christmas advert released

Christmas Jumper Hanging Ornaments made from a wool blend felt with a polyester padding
and a satin ribbon for hanging, by Cariad in Stitches where handcrafted and personalised gifts for all occasions are made in a home studio in North Nottinghamshire.   Available on The British Craft House website.

Now that Halloween and Bonfire night are behind us, it’s time to refocus our attention to Christmas.  Lately many retailers have started to show their Christmas adverts on British television and online, and these have an impact on our behaviour when it comes to Christmas gift shopping.

Analysis of Google search data reveals that online searches for ‘Christmas jumper’ in the UK skyrocketed 136% on the 5th November, within a day that British home and fashion retailer John Lewis released their Christmas advert featuring a little boy who gives a Christmas jumper to an alien girl.  Entitled "Unexpected Guest", the advert tells how a 14-year-old boy Nathan, who discovers and befriends a visiting space traveller, Skye, and introduces her to the season’s traditions on planet Earth, from decorating the tree to eating mince pies.  In the end when it is time for the alien to leave Earth, the boy gifts her a special Christmas jumper.  This non-gender-specific children's jumper sold out on the John Lewis website within an hour of the advert dropping.  It is in navy blue with green sleeves, and features a Christmas tree embellished with lights.  

Creative resource Design Bundles has revealed in a recent finding that online interest in 'Christmas jumper' skyrocketed to triple the average volume in one day, an unprecedented spike in interest for people googling Christmas jumpers in the first week of November, according to Google Trends analysis.

A spokesperson for Design Bundles, a marketplace for design resources which conducted the study, said: “The John Lewis Christmas advert never fails to signal the start of Christmas in the UK, and is a much-loved tradition for the whole country. It's fascinating to see just how this year's advert has triggered an early spike in searches for Christmas jumpers, given that Halloween is barely over. The fact that the advert itself was released by John Lewis early because of an increase in searches for Christmas-related products on the retailer's website, suggests that we may start to see the UK prepare for Christmas earlier and earlier every year". 

Meanwhile, fair isle jumpers remain a favourite for Christmas gifting, and this tradition continues this season.

Christmas "dinosaur" jumpers for all in the family available at London's National History Museum online.

Over at the Natural History Museum in London, festive dinosaurs Christmas jumper which comes in different sizes so you can dress the whole family from children to adults in matching style. 

What’s more, this British-made Christmas jumper, is knitted from 100% recycled yarn by a small, family-owned business that designs and manufactures knitwear in Leicester, with a focus on reducing its carbon footprint.

The navy, red, green and white pattern features snowflakes, fir trees - and everyone's favourite dinosaurs: Triceratops, Stegosaurus, T. rex and Diplodocus. Even the Museum's famous Hans Sloane nautilus shell appears along the hem and cuffs. 

The material used to make the jumpers is certified by the Global Recycling Standards (GRS) for its 100% recycled contents - a blend of 60% recycled cotton and 40% recycled polyester, the latter made from locally recycled plastic bottles.

Elsewhere, the Faraway Gang offers children's knitwear with a slow fashion approach.

The Faraway Gang jumpers, above and below, are made from all-natural extra-fine merino wool, these jumpers are robust, non-itchy, and ready for adventure, according to founder Sally Jackson.

The Faraway Gang use raw materials and knitting techniques to produce a quality that will stand the test of time, according to the award-winning brand. The jumpers are made from all-natural extra-fine merino wool, all made in the UK.

The Faraway Gang was founded in 2017 by Sally Jackson after becoming a mother for the second time.  Sally, like all mums, sought to get the balance right between having a family and retaining her creativity and independence.  With over 15 years experience as a knitwear designer for some of the UK’s most known brands such as Boden, Great Plains and Joules, interest in her designs were strong. Her first independent range won her a Gold Junior Award within a month of launching her signature style of fair-isle pattern showcasing her natural talent for colour.

UK department stores, brands and designers produce essential scrubs and gowns for NHS

In the face of a pandemic crisis, many fashion retailers, designers and luxury brands have stepped up to the occasion and demonstrate their leadership that is so required at these challenging times.

While management executives are prioritizing the safety of employees and customers and putting new health and safety protocols and crisis-response activities in place, many are taking the opportunity to show they care and offer services that do good to the community, which can only score positive points in the eyes of their customers when things do finally go back to normal.

John Lewis image.

For one, department store John Lewis has re-opened its textile factory, ‘Herbert Parkinson’ in Lancashire to make protective gowns for the National Health Service (NHS).  This follows its recent initiative to create a wellbeing area for staff at the newly set-up NHS Nightingale hospitals in London and Manchester and working with the British Medical Association to deliver 60,000 essentials to key NHS staff.

The Herbert Parkinson factory which normally produces bespoke blinds, curtains, cushions, pillows and duvets, will this week begin making around 8,000 washable, clinical gowns for the Northumbria NHS Foundation Trust.  In addition, John Lewis will also be donating more than 20,000 metres of cotton fabric from its haberdashery department and distribution centres to two groups making scrubs for the NHS - ‘For The Love of Scrubs’ and ‘Scrubs Glorious Scrubs’. It is expected that this donated fabric will produce some 6,000 scrubs.

Elsewhere in the UK, fashion luxury brand Mulberry has switched its handbag factory in Somerset to making 8,000 gowns for NHS workers in Bristol.  
Homewares chain Dunelm has also turned its curtain factory into making scrubs for NHS workers, while home and fashion brand Laura Ashley’s factory in Carno, Powyrs, in Wales have also been making scrubs.
A few weeks ago, luxury brand Burberry announced it was underetaking a series of measures, including using its global supply network to deliver 100,000 surgical masks to NHS workers, and dedicating its trench coat factory in Yorkshire to manufacturing non-surgical gowns and masks for patients in British hospitals.
Separately Fashion Roundtable, the secretariat for the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Textiles and Fashion, announced that it had brought together designers, manufacturers, the UK Cabinet, the Department for International Trade and several brands with the aim of supplying PPE to the NHS and additional protective products to the general public.
Make It British is also uniting UK manufacturers to produce PPE for frontline staff, while British designer Phoebe English is leading a team of independent UK designers – including Bethany Williams and Holly Fulton – to produce non-frontline protective clothing with the Home Office’s Emergency Designer Network. 

Waitrose and John Lewis launching superhero-themed bear designing contest to support NHS

Waitrose & Partners with John Lewis & Partners are launching a competition, calling children in the UK to help designing a superhero-themed bear to grace their shelves this Christmas. All proceeds will go to the National Health Service, the NHS, in support of all their incredible work, especially during these challenging times when many communities throughout the country are affected by the Covid-19 outbreak

According to its announcement, “The competition launches Feel Good Friday from @WaitroseAndPartners and @JohnLewisAnd Partners to help bring the nation together for good.

From mindfulness and cookery classes to arts and crafts, we'll be working with Partners, celebrity experts, charities and the NHS to support the nation through it all."

To enter, children are called to simply draw, sketch and design their SuperBear using the template which is available to download from the dedicated website.
Entries are encouraged to share designs by email to designyoursuperbear@johnlewis.co.uk by 5pm on Friday 8th May 2020.

The winning teddy will be sold in John Lewis and Waitrose shops later this year, with 100% of the profits going to the UK's much valued NHS.

Full details, click HERE.

The I LOVE LINEN campaign has landed in London

I LOVE LINEN being promoted in the atrium of the Peter Jones department store, Sloane Square, London.
Photo © Lucia Carpio 2018

Sharp-eyed shoppers and eco-conscious consumers probably already notice that an extensive campaign is going on in London this month in major retailers and brand name shops around town where a natural and wonderfully versatile fabric – Linen - is being promoted.

Following successful campaigns in Milan (2017) and in Paris (2016), the I LOVE LINEN campaign has arrived in London to raise the awareness on the wide range of applications and qualities of this eco-friendly natural fabric.

Billed as the world’s oldest fabric, linen comes from flax, the only fibre of plant that originates from Europe, here 80% of the world’s supply is grown along Normandy and the northern coasts of France, Belgium and the Netherlands.

During the month of April until May 13, a series of special events are held at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and in a network of some 40 local partner brands. The I LOVE LINEN message is splashed across some 200 shop windows representing the best of British fashion and home furnishings.

Jaeger is one of the brands promoting
linen in their Spring 2018 collections.
Photo © Lucia Carpio 2018

For example, at John Lewis and Peter Jones department stores in London where metres of linen fabrics are hung in the centre atrium of the stores promoting the I LOVE LINEN campaign.

Other participating brands include Poetry, Oska, L.K. Bennett, Ally Capellino, Jigsaw, Uniqlo, Vivienne Westwood, Jaeger, Skandium, Brora and Velorution, to name but a few – all promoting the qualities of linen through men’s and women’s ready-to-wear, children’s wear, sportswear, home furnishings and fashion accessories etc.

Just opened this week at the V&A is the event Fashioned from Nature and it is the UK’s first exhibition to showcase the complex relationship that fashion has with the natural world.  The comprehensive and informative exhibition highlights how fashion has been inspired by nature, and the demand the industry calls for raw materials, the enormous impact on the environment and the technology advancement is affecting our daily lives.   The European Confederation of Flax and Hemp - CELC, the authority of linen, is the major sponsor of this landmark exhibition which runs to January 27, 2019.

Also at Chelsea College of Arts – University of the Arts London, third year BA textile design students explore the fibre and fabric as part of a special creative project, in tandem with the V&A.
For more information on linen you can visit the ilovelinen.uk website.

I LOVE LINEN is jointly financed by the flax/linen industry and the EU. 

Photo © Lucia Carpio 2018.