Planet Earth Guernsey Sweater

For centuries fishermen from the coastal villages of Britain and Ireland wore rugged wool sweaters to protect them out at sea. But while each community developed their own variations, it was the sweaters made on the small island of Guernsey – with their thick knits, high roll necks and patterns inspired by ropes, nets and anchors – that would go on to become world-famous. Shackleton and his crew even wore them 16,000 kilometres away as they headed across Antarctica.

Following in the footsteps of one of history’s greatest adventurers and generations of ultra-tough fishermen, we’ve built our own version of the iconic Guernsey sweater. Heavily based on those original designs, our Planet Earth Guernsey Sweater is a rugged, substantial wool sweater designed to withstand harsh weather from the Atlantic to Antarctica.

On 4 March 1909, Ernest Shackleton and his Southern Party finally returned to their ship anchored by the Erebus Ice Tongue in Antarctica. 120 days earlier they’d set off on a 1,755-mile round trip towards the South Pole that would nearly kill them all. An iconic post-expedition photograph taken on board the Nimrod ship shows all four men alive but emaciated and severely weather-beaten, with sunken eyes and wild beards. Shackleton stands centre left wearing a rugged wool sweater with a high roll neck, and a smile.

Merino sheep are bred to survive scorching summers and freezing winters, so the fibres of their wool respond and adapt to the conditions you find yourself in – either trapping or releasing heat depending on the temperature and humidity of your skin. Staying warm is all about trapping as many pockets of air next to your body as possible and that’s what Merino is built for. Every Merino fibre is hollow which means you have millions of air pockets trapped next to your skin. And as the natural curl of wool fibres traps more air than straight fibres, the microscopic texture of the fabric itself will also retain heat.

The outside of every Merino fibre is covered in a natural wax coating which makes it water repellent against light rain or sea spray. At the same time the Merino acts like a sponge to soak up sweat and spread it over a massive surface area so that it evaporates at high speed. And as Merino can absorb over 30% of its own weight in water and still feel dry, you’ll stay warm and insulated.

Our raw Merino wool is turned into yarn at an historic woollen mill that sits between the hills of southwest Donegal on the coast of the Wild Atlantic Way. Working with both native and imported wools, Donegal Yarns is one of the last remaining mills producing traditional Irish yarns. It’s here that we blend flecks of colour through the yarn to create the sweater’s speckled effect.

It’s not sweat that smells, or even the clothes themselves, it’s the build-up of bacteria on the surface of the clothes. Merino is naturally odour resistant – odour molecules are absorbed and locked into the centre of the fibre of the Merino so you simply can’t smell them. They’re then released when you wash the sweater.