Knitting a Fair Legacy

In the mid-sixties, Odin's, a slightly upmarket cafè, was born on Devonshire St., Marylebone. James and Kristen Benson, a young couple, were the proprietors, dispensing light repasts to the locals. One of the early patrons was an Irish-born journeyman named Peter Langan. One day, when Langan caught sight of the facade, he noticed that it was uncharacteristically closed, and Kristen was standing forlornly on the street. She told Langan her husband died suddenly and closed for want of a chef. 

Langan portrayed himself as a self-taught chef, and the rest is history. He had an insatiable appetite for good food, drink, and women, and so when his courtship of the Danish-born Kristen became more serious, the swinging sixties really had arrived for Langan. 

However, where Langan occasionally lay his head at 26 Manchester Street, Marylebone, home of Kristen, it was the flat above, where a troupe of young artists, designers, and models would congregate for discussion, painting, and lovemaking. Acquiring the lease from his artistic influence — the British realist painter Sir William Coldstream — it was Patrick Procktor who was the artistic facilitator and protagonist of adding narrative to this burgeoning, carefree societal movement.

Procktor pursued his studies at the Slade School of Fine Art. However, similar to today, young, curious minds often unite and form progressive alliances at other schools. In Procktor's case, these communions included Ossie Clark and David Hockney, who were both contemporaries at the Royal College of Art. Much senior in age and having already left an indelible mark on British art culture, Cecil Beaton befriended the aforementioned artistic talents. Once Procktor took up residence at 26 Manchester Street, Beaton became a regular participant in aesthetic activities.

A Bigger Splash, 1967, the iconic pop art painting by Hockney, was on display at his most expansive retrospective at the Tate Britain in 2017. The Jack Hazan-directed documentary (1973) of the same name evocatively showcased this work, masterfully revealing from personal experience the evolving attitudes towards cultural expressions. In order to find perspective and explore the artistic and characteristic flux of the '60s, he endearingly features Procktor and Clark, who not only spotlight his dependent friends during this period but also delineate the mood and progressive essence of the era.

In between the painting and the subsequent documentary, his friend Clark posed for a portrait and appeared in a slightly different guise. From the back to the front, the fern green-hued armchair accommodates Clark's slouchy disposition, while the preeminent fashion designer of the '60s style zeitgeist, with his muted yellow, burgundy, and faded Columbia blue slender crewneck Fair Isle sweater, fuses and finishes at the apex of his high-waisted, flat-fronted, slim, rustic, and well-worn blue trousers that delineate this creative existence at home with the lowering winter temperatures. 

Meanwhile, Langan’s romantic relationship with Kristen fizzled out; however, Langan, with his delectable new style of cuisine and décor, had transformed Odin’s appeal so much so that when Sidney Poitier was in town, he’d only dine on Devonshire St. This popularity with the crème de la crème of fashionable high society enabled Langan to buy Kristen’s share. Even before that, Langan was so well acquainted with the à la mode British painters like Procktor, Hockney, Bacon, and Freud that they would gift their artwork pieces to hang on the walls and would dine in lieu of payment.

In 1973, after returning to London from filming The Wilby Conspiracy in Africa, Poitier and his close friend Michael Caine, the latter who was arguably the ultimate proponent of the roll neck sweater, took turns treating Caine and his wife, Shakira, to dinner. Unsurprisingly, they had dinner at Odin's, where Caine noted that Langan's mushroom pâté, spinach and seafood salads, and crème brûlée were the best he had ever tasted. Caine had always been interested in opening a fantastic big brasserie in London. That night, he met a personality who, with his investment, would not only enhance Odin's allure to the beau monde but also transform the Coq d'Or premises in Mayfair's Stratton Street into the infamous Langan's Brasserie, arguably the London restaurant that has fed the most illustrious list of society. Langan told Caine, "The Walls must speak," and similar to Odin's, Langan's Brasserie, it was renowned for its placement of artwork from the aforementioned artists and others, no more so than the emotive painting of Langan, Caine, and Shepherd eating lunch at Langan's Brasserie.

Procktor was a gay artist, and so when the government legalised homosexuality in 1967, it certainly opened up freedom. But indicative of Procktor and the times, he married widow and his neighbour Kristen in 1973. Like his friend Clark, he found solace at home in both a Fair Isle sweater and vest. Mick Jagger, along with his bohemian compatriots at his famous den on Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, made the Fair Isle sweater synonymous with swinging London. The Beatles, Rod Stewart, Eric Clapton, and David Bowie all had a fondness for the Fair Isle sweater. However, Peter Townshend of The Who stood out in the pattern the most when he regularly wore a V-neck Fair Isle vest on stage. 

Now, the Fair Isle pattern emerged roughly 100 years prior to that of rock ‘n’ roll. Marooned between the Shetland and Orkney archipelagos, the Fair Isle is Scotland’s most remote inhabited island. It’s home to only 60 people, and one of those is the eloquent Mati Ventrillon, a French-Venezuelan designer. Originally an architect based in London, Ventrillon made a self-guided and intrinsic move to Fair Isle, where she began her passion for knitting. She, along with only a couple of new islanders over the decades, learnt the intricate patterns and techniques of real Fair Isle knitting from natives. With only a handful of descendants, their mothers and grandmothers began learning hand-knitting traditions at the tender age of 3 or 4 to supplement their family's income. In 1980, the Fair Island Craft’s Co-operative was established, and it precipitated and strengthened the tradition where local people would produce hand-frame-knitted and hand-finished garments that only adhered to exemplary quality and would sell directly to visitors to the island from all corners of the globe.

The Fair Isle Crafts Cooperative dissolved in 2011, and so determined was Ventrillon to keep the traditional alive, she found investment to start her own label. Ventrillon is a purist, and deems a traditional Fair Isle knit has been handknitted by someone from the island using a pattern that has been handed down from generation to generation. However, the signature technique that non-Fair Isle designers use involves only two strands of colour per row to creative motifs based on traditional patterns. An original Fair Isle knit follows an OXO’ pattern, where a geometric ‘O’ is followed by an ‘X’ and repeated throughout the garment

Bearing in mind Coco Chanel single-handedly converted the upper echelons of society to embrace athleisure garments with her designs, like many other fashionable ladies in the 1920s, it's unsurprising she chose to wear Fair Isle pullovers for their practicality. On a not-so-different fashion pedestal as Chanel was Beaton. He was an undergraduate at Cambridge in the early ‘20s, but because his sartorial leanings stretched the depth of his purse, he often opted for vintage pieces, and it’s known a Fair Isle sweater was front of his shopping list, thus emphasising its unisex appeal even in this era. 

However, it wasn’t Chanel or Beaton in the ‘20s that transcended the Fair Isle pattern into the mainstream; it was the then Prince of Wales, later King Edward VIII. He posed for a portrait by the artist John St. Helier, and along with a finely knitted V-neck sweater, he sports a tweed flat cap, a white pin-collar shirt, and a black tie, and he nonchalantly holds a Cairn terrier. Today, it's still an archetypal example that portrays its gravitas in menswear. The Prince of Wales, along with other aesthetes, often wore Fair Isle garb while swinging a driver at private golf clubs and schussing down the slopes at glamorous ski resorts like Sugarbush in Vermont.

When World War II introduced clothing rationing, it not only affected other distinguished clothing patterns but also forced knitters to use pre-knit yarn and one-colour resources, leading to the usefulness of different Fair Isle shades. Ventrillon is an anomaly in that she offers a bespoke service of Fair Isle knitwear; however, in the broader market, and specifically in menswear, it is scarce. Beautifully hand-knitted Fair Isle garments are certainly a delectable purchase for the frosty temperatures that have already arrived on British shores; it's best to opt for renowned brands. In Scotland, both Johnston's of Elgin and Campbell's of Beauly have strong royal ties, and New & Lingwood's new lambswool Fair Isle designs at 53 Jermyn St, London, offer a sophisticated look for the impending Christmas morning drinks.

Feature Image: A man poses wearing a Fair Isle jumper on one of the Shetland Islands in June 1970. Getty Images.