Read more about this collection Hide this — show me the jumpers
eBay is where the Christmas jumpers nobody makes any more go to live, and that makes it the single most interesting shop on this list. Everything else sells you this year’s range. This is the only place you can find a knit from 1987 that somebody’s grandfather actually wore, which is as authentic as a festive jumper gets.
Two quite different things are worth hunting for. There is genuine vintage – proper wool Fair Isle and hand-knitted jumpers from decades when they were simply what people wore in winter, often for very little money because the seller does not know what they have. And there is the secondhand current stuff, which is the sensible environmental answer to a garment worn six times a year and then abandoned in a wardrobe.
The rules are the rules of all secondhand buying. Measurements beat sizes every time, because a 1980s large is not a modern large – ask for chest and length in inches. Look hard at the photographs for moth holes and underarm wear. Check the seller’s feedback. And start in October, because the good vintage pieces are gone by the end of November and the prices climb every week after that.
