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The Story Behind the Sailor Collar Top

It’s always really important to me to unravel the stories behind my nautically inspired knitwear collection. Take the Sailor Collar top for example, which was inspired by a vintage 1950’s knit in my archive and some period portraits taken at the end of the 19^th century but I wanted to tell you the full story behind this iconic design. 

The sailor collar, sometimes called the “middy” collar, began its story as so many design classics do, out of functionality; the square collar which folded back to a lapel was a practical feature of British Royal Navy uniforms in the 1830s and eventually became a fashion icon worn by people all over the world.

The square shape and V-neck made it easy for sailors to cut and sew their own uniforms. At the time, no one could have predicted that this straightforward piece of naval clothing would come to influence high fashion and school uniforms alike.

One of the most interesting moments in its history happened in 1846 when Queen Victoria dressed her young son, Prince Albert Edward, in a miniature sailor suit. He was only four years old, but the outfit captured the press and the public’s imagination. Soon, sailor suits became fashionable for children across Europe and America. Just like today, an outfit worn by a celebrity such as a member of the Royal Family has the ability to spark a global trend.

Over the years, the sailor look has expanded beyond childrenswear. By the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the “middy” blouse had become popular among women and girls. Worn with pleated skirts, it was practical, comfortable, and perfect for activities such as sports, yachting, and school uniform. The style reflected a growing desire for clothing that allowed greater freedom of movement while still looking stylish.

The sailor collar enjoyed another wave of popularity from the 1920s up to 1970s, when nautical fashion became associated with effortless elegance. Designers such as Yves Saint Laurent embraced maritime-inspired styles, while celebrities like Brigitte Bardot helped make the look fashionable and glamorous. The sailor-inspired top became a symbol of relaxed sophistication, especially along the French Riviera.

The sailor collar continues to influence fashion today, enjoying a particular resurgence this season. From working sailors in the nineteenth century to students, fashion designers, and style icons, the sailor collar has had an extraordinary journey, much like the Gansey jumper. They are both a reminder that the most practical designs are often the ones that leave a lasting legacy on culture and fashion.

This spring, I found myself drawn back to the British coastline—to that quiet, shifting place where land meets water and time seems to slow. In particular, the River Orwell Estuary near Pin Mill in Suffolk; a landscape steeped in atmosphere and memory, and one that feels both familiar and full of quiet delight.

It was like exploring a place that you have seen in a dream, where everything is just where you expect it and yet everything is a surprise.

Arthur Ransome, Swallows and Amazons.

That sense of discovery has always been the starting point for my collections. Discovering new stories to tell that are rooted in local nautical heritage, but that are also easy to wear today and enduring—pieces to live in as the weather turns and shifts. There’s something comforting about quality knitwear and well-made cottons; garments that adapt to the elements rather than fight them.

The collection unfolds slowly, across three moments—Spring Part One, Spring Part Two, and Summer—allowing each piece to find its place naturally in your wardrobe. As always, the focus has been on sourcing fibres with integrity: chosen not only for their quality, but for their sustainability and ability to last. These are pieces made to be worn often, softened over time, and returned to year after year.

The first delivery is about transition—those in-between days. Organic cotton T-shirts sit alongside mid-weight knits in organic cotton and RWS-certified Merino. There are my signature Real Shetland wool Ganseys and cardigans, and a new addition this season: the Dowsey Norfolk cable Gansey, a personal reworking of a classic Norfolk fisherman’s stitch. Everything has been knitted in Nottingham, or sewn in Norfolk continuing a commitment to making close to home and preserving British craftsmanship.

The colours felt instinctive this season. Navy and Ocean Blue form the foundation, as they always seem to, with Sailor Stripes in Navy and White bringing a familiar rhythm. A touch of Bordeaux adds depth—something slightly unexpected, but still grounded in tradition.

The klop, klop of water under the bows of a small boat will cure most troubles in this world.”

Arthur Ransome, Swallows and Amazons.

Perhaps that is what this collection is really about—a sense of calm, of continuity, of living in the moment. Clothes that carry a story, but leave space for your own. Pieces to take with you, wherever the season leads.

Britain has always been a sea faring nation of fishermen, merchant sailors and the Royal Navy. The home of Lord Nelson (did you know he came from Norfolk?), Sir Francis Drake and Henry Blogg, the most decorated Lifeboatman of all time (who also came from Norfolk!).

For the whole of July, Charl Knitwear will be celebrating the 200-year anniversary of the RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institution) by donating £10 from every sale of a West Gansey jumper, vest or cardigan to the charity.

The history of the RNLI is quite literally knitted into the stories of the Norfolk fishermen, many of whom were lifeboat men long before the RNLI came to Norfolk. Robert Smith MBE, Harbour Master at Wells-Next-The-Sea in North Norfolk recalls in his book how:

“The whole of Wells used to know about it when a lifeboat “shout” began. A giant rocket whooshed into the air and exploded with a deep thud. It reverberated around town as well as right through your body. If you were a member of the lifeboat crew, as soon as you heard and felt it, you raced to be one of the first to reach the lifeboat station.”

Crossing the Bar – Tales of Wells Harbour. By Robert Smith MBE 

Lifeboat crews are some of the bravest people around, risking their own lives to save others. The waters around the North Norfolk coast are famous for being treacherous with hidden sand banks, extreme tides and currents. The local fishermen knew these waters like a farmer knows his fields, so they were the best people to man the lifeboats, especially in the days before electronic navigation systems. Henry Blogg is a local RNLI hero, he was the coxswain of the Cromer lifeboat, down the coast from Wells, between 1909 and 1947. In his lifetime, he saved 873 people and one dog and was awarded the George Cross for gallantry. There is an RNLI  museum dedicated to him at the end of Cromer Pier.

Tales from the RNLI at Wells Harbour.

In celebration of the Royal National Lifeboat Institute’s 200 year anniversary this year, I asked Wells Lifeboatman James Betteridge a few questions about his work:

Frankie: How did you get involved with the RNLI?

James: As a small child, my Grandad used to take me to the station when we heard the Maroons go off, to watch the lifeboats launch, and if possible, watch them return too. As an adult I was always interested in the Lifeboats and when I became self-employed, I enquired about joining the team. I joined Wells lifeboat team in 2005.

Frankie: What are the best and worst bits of the role?

James: The best part is working within a great team to get a job done. When the pager goes off, you never know what it might be… The worst part is the paperwork!

Frankie: What is it about the sea that inspires you to go out in all weathers?

James: There’s a job to be done, whether it be people or animals in distress.

Frankie: What makes Wells and the surrounding area such a challenging area of sea?

James: The area of our operations present a continually changing environment, whether it be shifting sands, varying states of tide or muddy creeks and marshes. The tidal ranges and shifting sands create many areas of potential danger regarding people getting cut off. A mix of leisure and commercial users of the sea encounter the unforeseen problems associated with failed machinery and equipment and changing weather conditions. 

Frankie: What would be your single most important piece of advice to give visitors to the North Norfolk coast this summer?

James: Be aware, be very aware. A lot of information about possible dangers are signposted where necessary. If in doubt ask someone or stay where you’re confident you’re not at risk of the changing conditions, whether that be tidal or weather related.

Frankie: What’s your favourite story from the RNLI’s 200-year history?

James: My favourite story of the RNLI’s 200-year history is the “RNLI’s 200 Voices” podcast No72. Worth a listen. Subtitles may be necessary!!

RNLI 200 voices episode. 72

Our donations will help to pay for the excellent training lifeboat crew receive at the RNLI College in Poole, new craft and specialized equipment.

The WEST Gansey knits are directly inspired by a Gansey jumper worn by Norfolk fisherman Leonard West in the 1970’s. It depicts “herringbones” because herrings were the main catch in the heyday of the Norfolk fishing industry in the 1930’s.

I chose this design because it translates into a lovely bouncy 3-dimenstional stitch which gives these pieces a slightly denser, structured shape like a sweatshirt, but with a more refined finish. The wider, boxy proportions mean they all fit easily over summer blouses and dresses but can also be worn next to the skin as they are knitted from such a luxurious blend of merino wool (54%) and organic cotton (46%) yarn.

Something fun…

Welcome to Wells Harbour Lobster Hatchery! This is a new initiative started by the Wells Harbour Commissioners and the Wells and District Inshore Fisherman’s Association to protect and sustain the lobster population along the North Norfolk coast. You can follow their progress in hatching and protecting the lobster population on their new Instagram account @wellslobsterhatchery

A very special collaboration with acclaimed chef and author Emily Scott.

To celebrate the launch of the West spring weight Gansey knits, Emily has created two delicious new recipes using locally caught Mackerel and Herring.

Ever since I first read Emily’s beautiful cookery books, I felt we shared a lot in common; her recipes express her passion for beautifully simple, seasonal ingredients with a close connection to place and season. Her writing evokes a sense of nostalgia for coastal living and highlights the relevance of provenance in her ingredients. This reminds me of how important it is to me to use British sheep’s wools and preserve the heritage knitting stitches found in the fishermen’s Gansey jumpers, near where I grew up in Norfolk.

I’ve often thought that recipes are like knitting patterns in that they were rarely recorded, but instead passed down through the generations like good stories, with each generation making slight adjustments and leaving their mark. This makes them even more precious and important to preserve for future generations.

I also smiled when I read her mantra that “good things come to those who wait” because it reminded me of mine: “the collection is not ready until it’s ready” something it seems we’ve both learnt with a fair amount of experience!

RECIPE 1: Port Isaac mackerel with a raw salad of courgettes, chilli, nasturtium flowers and rocket, find it here.

RECIPE 2: Warm herring salad with new potatoes, crème fraiche, apple and green herbs, find it here.

More about Emily:

Emily Scott is a chef and author based in Cornwall, England.  

For Emily less is more. Her cooking ethos focusses around taking a few seasonal ingredients and letting them shine. Her classical training in London and France helped form the backbone of her cooking style.

Emily was commissioned by the Cabinet Office in the Summer 2021 to curate a special dinner for Royalty and the World Leaders at the G7 summit at the Eden Project. Emily was the first woman to cook for leaders of the western worlds; a stand-out career defining moment for Emily and the rest of her team.

Amongst other accolades Emily has been named Best Chef by the South-West Food Magazine and was listed in the top 100 most influential women in hospitality industry two years running. She has been recognised by Michelin since 2016 and appeared on the Great British Menu on BBC2 to represent the South-West back in 2019. She has also made appearances on Saturday Kitchen, Rick Stein’s Cornwall and James Martin’s Saturday Morning.

In 2021 Emily’s debut cookbook Sea & Shore: Recipes and Stories from a Kitchen in Cornwall was published by Hardie Grant, and more recently in 2023 her second book was published Time & Tide: Recipes and Stories from my Coastal Kitchen. Emily is now writing her third book. More recently Emily has announced a new partnership with the iconic Calypso Grill in the Cayman Islands as the new Executive Consultant Chef.

Emily writes on her Best Selling Substack Shore to Shore each week.

As part of my “Stories” series, I wanted to tell you more about the stitches in my collection. I made it my mission when founding the Charl, to preserve the stitches and stories found in the original Norfolk Gansey jumpers before they were lost in time.

The wonderful thing about knitwear is that you are create a fabric as well as a piece of clothing, which has always been a huge attraction for me.  Knitwear can be such a tactile material, almost becoming a work of art, but crucially never losing its functionality.

In the next few newsletters, I’ll be sharing a bit more about the stories behind my collection with you; from the journey of my wool, the stitches and construction of my jumpers to the characters behind their namesakes. I hope you find them interesting and would love to know which one catches your imagination the most…

In this first story, I’d like to tell you more about the stitches.

Gansey jumpers were knitted all along the North Sea coastline from Scotland down to Cornwall, but some ports really stood out from the rest with their iconic Gansey patterns and Sheringham in Norfolk was one of them. The Sheringham Ganseys are renowned for the level of detail in their stitches which typically run in vertical columns along the top half of the jumpers. Each family had their own patterns – rather like a coat of arms which, contrary to popular belief were not invented as a form of identification for drowned fishermen, but actually as a source of family pride, like a Scottish tartan.

The stitches knitted into the Norfolk Ganseys range from “wedding bands” and “hearts” from the family, “rungs and furrows” from farming, weather conditions like “hailstones” and “bolts of lightning” to more nautical stitches like “coils o’ rope” (cables), “herrings”, “fishing nets” and “flags”.

Basketry and Fishermen

The Norfolk fishing communities were virtually self-sufficient, they made their own baskets, underwear, boats, nets, crab pots and of course Gansey jumpers. Abraham Cooper (pictured here) was probably on his fish-round from door to door when Olive Edis (photographer) asked him to sit for this study. The fishermen used wicker baskets to store and sell their catch; the more open weave baskets were used when the fish were caught as they would let the water drain through and the square baskets (pictured above) were used to sell the fish back on dry land. The beautiful thing about wicker baskets is that they can only ever be woven by hand. The tension and technique of the weaver can be seen in the construction – in the same way as a knitted Gansey jumper, making each basket or Gansey unique to the maker.

Meet Catherine Beaumont, a basket weaver from West Sussex who still uses the traditional English technique of tying the willow “underfoot”, rather than the more popular Continental method of splitting the central slath sticks to create the basket base which is gradually taking precedence because it is easier to make. Similarly to my knitwear, she believes in the importance of keeping these traditional British crafts alive for future generations to appreciate. 

I met Catherine at The Country Brocante Fair in Hampshire earlier this year and immediately we got talking about the similarities between basketry and knitting. There is something extremely satisfying about her baskets, their proportions and ultimately their story, which is her story and the story of the people who taught her along the way:

“I did a two-day workshop in 1996 and came away with a handful of willow and a desire to do more weaving… My favourite weave quickly became the 3-rod wale. I liked it because it creates a dense vessel like feel and look to the basket. 

The “Waled Ken” is kind of my signature basket. And the “Waled Honeypot.”

I started making these 27 years ago now.

The wide base of the Waled Ken creates a very stable basket in the woodland environment we lived and worked in. We lived in a caravan in the woods and then yurts. Basketmaking fitted perfectly into that lifestyle. I had tried ceramics the same year I leaned basketmaking. The forms of my early baskets were inspired by my inability to control clay on a wheel. But (I was) able to weave willow rhythmically and with control…”

Catherine Beaumont weaving a basket

I saw similarities between Catherine’s baskets and the stitches I had chosen for my Gansey jumpers like the “herringbone” in the WEST group for example.

Today, Catherine has a dedicated customer following and her baskets are available to buy directly from her website and are stocked by: 

 The Makers Barn Petworth

 Sorbet Living

Weaving Willow / Catherine Beaumont

One Inspirational Woman:

International Women’s Day 2024

This is one date in the calendar that I always look forward to.

This year for International Women’s Day, I’m celebrating the life and work of Olive Edis, the Norfolk based photographer who was one of the most celebrated photographers of her time, at a time when a woman’s place was most definitely considered to be in the home.

Olive joined the Royal Photographic Society in 1913 and was made an Hon. FRPS the following year. In 1919, she was the first accredited female war photographer, commissioned by the Imperial War Museum to document the role of women in the aftermath of the I World War in France and Belgium. Towards the end of her life, she exhibited some of her portraits of Norfolk fishermen at the Festival of Britain in 1951.

Olive was a society photographer who was commissioned by the rich and famous of her time: PM David Lloyd George, the Duke of Windsor (Edward VII)` and King George VI, Thomas Hardy and leading Suffragette Elizabeth Garrett to name just a few. She was at the cutting edge of her profession and one of the first British photographers to add colour to her images using the Lumiere autochrome process.

But it was her portraits of the Norfolk fishermen that really caught my eye. Using the natural light from her glass roofed studio on Church Street, Sheringham, Olive created portraits which reached into the soul of her sitters. Looking at her photographs today, you could be in conversation with them, transcending space and time.

Just as Olive captured the twinkle of an eye, she also recorded every single stitch in their lovingly knitted Gansey jumpers so that I was able to piece together the stitches and techniques used to knit these works of art which have since been lost in time.

“The face is an index of the character, and the photograph, if you like to put it that way, should be the X-ray of the soul. One is not truly a photographer unless one’s work shows what is inside the sitter, as well as what is outside.”

Olive Edis, interview with The New York Evening World, 1^st November 1920.

George Blogg, and Gilbert Leather Rook c.1905 by Olive Edis courtesy of Norfolk Museums Service. Hannah of Graham St. Fashion wears the Harrison and Craske Gansey jumpers today.

Afterall, stories are not always told through words but sometimes in paintings, photographs and objects and this is why I find the work of Olive Edis so mesmerizing.

FIND OUT MORE

The full collection of Olive’s works are held by Norfolk Museums Service, with a smaller, permanent exhibition on display at Cromer Museum, Norfolk.

If you’d like to read more, the exhibition catalogue “Fishermen & Kings; the photography of Olive Edis” is available to buy on-line.