About ten years ago I decided I was too old to wear a hooded top. Its association with David Camerons hugging activities and with it being the go to outfit for petty criminals and casual drug users in our area persuaded my to offload all my “hoodies” to the charity shop.
I needed a replacement and not being fond of a round neck, sweatshirts were out and jumpers seemed a little too formal. It was a little old lady down the street who persuded me to try a fleece.” Oooh there as warm as toast, love ” was her recommendation.
I bought my first, bottle green XTC English Settlement fleece shortly afterwards and havn`t really looked back. They are warm , need minimal ironing and the half zipped items I prefer usually have a high collar keeping the cold breezes off my neck.
A few years ago I discovered Craghoppers teddy bear fleeces. Although a dull grey or green colour they were light and soft to the touch and then they brought out the Bear Grylls teddy bear fleece… in electric blue!. Well I just had to have it as I hate the dull shades of mens clothes.
Last Year Craghoppers introduced the Cason fleeces, described as having a velvety pile. I got the loganberry one and the one that is sort of silvery grey. I didn`t get the light pea green one……until a week later when I decided I couldn`t resist it. I`ve just bought the spiced copper one (very on trend apparently), so I fear I am getting a little obsessed.
During our rather poor summer this year, I took to wearing base fleeces, being lightweight and warm enough for a temperate June, with Regatta providing some quality items in burnt salmon, deep teal and fig, just pull them on and go.
I feel better for unburdening this on the Afterword Massive, as I`m sure there will be a few like minded souls nodding in agreement. Any other fleece devotees out there?
I`m also partial to a corduory trouser rather than a jean.
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Ah, Mick, I applaud your enthusiasm but as a long time poser of the question What Would Steve McQueen Wear? (Sheepskins, shawl cardigans, rollnecks, field jackets, peacoats), I must remain an agnostic, rather than a devotee. I do love a cord trouser, though. Sunspel do some lovely drawstring designs.
I put fleeces in the same bracket as matching waterproof jackets for couples. I grant their practicality for outsdoorsy types, but I’ll stick with a jumper and a trench coat for the colder weather.
https://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/matching-north-face-jackets-mandatory-for-couples-aged-45-and-over-2015032596669
They don’t mind being scrunched up, they’re warm and they wash and dry easily.
Nothing wrong with fleeces.
Apart from one thing.
Those fleeces people wear with designs all over them; a flock of horses running, wolves howling at the moon, or bum-faced dogs of some description.
Oh yes, along with floral-print leggings.
I can see you in a nice pair of floral leggings Steve.
I do have nice legs, I am told.
I did once wear fishnet stockings when I did a sponsored hitch-hike to Paris. We chose an ‘Allo ‘Allo theme. My ladyfriend went dressed as René, me as Yvette. I had shoulder-length hair at the time.
I went to the gents on the Dover-Calais ferry and a gnarly trucker pinched my arse.
I too rock a half-zip microfleece, although with jeans or chinos rather than cords.
Mrs F once bought me a fleece-lined thick cotton (towelling-style) jumper with a half-zip. It is like wearing a hot water tank blanket – reduced mobilty and instant sweat. The kind of thing Norwegian trawlermen could wear at sea, not so suited to the mild Cambridgeshire climate.
The phrase ‘minimal ironing’ bothers me, though. Go near a fleece with an iron and surely you end up melting it?
Turn inside out and gently steam. My mother taught me that!
It being dress-down Friday, I’m sitting at work wearing a fleece my son bought me for Christmas. His mother and I met at an introductory event for our university’s role-playing society.
34 years later our son started an MSc course at the same university and joined the same society. For Christmas we got matching hoodies with the soc’s logo and our names (in my wife’s case in her maiden name). I’m still made up by this.
Wait, so is it a fleece or a hoodie?
I’ve got a nice big fleece hoodie bought in Disneyland, with Mickey on it. It’s the warmest thing you can wear, except for a duvet with arm holes in.
Hmm, I suppose technically it’s a hoodie. Does that mean its not also a fleece?
A floodie?
Very extreme They Might Be Giants fans.
(yes, that is pretty tortuous innit?)
I am still reaping the benefits of last year’s sale at Cotswold, where they had reduced the price of the North Face Cornice fleeces to £15 from £50. I took one of each colour at that price. Safe to say I wasn’t fleeced.
Probably still way more than the cost of manufacture in some far eastern sweatshop full of children.
Few wardrobes will pass purity tests. All my gear is made in the EU because of some minor misgivings I’d share but standards have improved in most if not all of those free trade zones.
My name is Simon, and I have a long standing love affair with fleece. They’re ideal for the Fall and Spring around here where a thick jumper is too much, and shirt sleeves too little.
The few I have left, as I slowly hand my clothes down to my son, come from LL Bean. They last flipping years as well.
Ideal for the Fall? I always thought that Mark E. Was happier in a harrington than a fleece…
Badum, and indeed, tish.
I’ve pulled mine out from the cupboard under the stairs. I’m planning on living in it for the next six months.
Well….I seem to have taken the opposite route. I had a few fleeces, but now enjoy the zip up hoody as sold by our local ‘Saltrock’, a sort of surf shop. I prefer them round the house to a jumper, and are good for outdoors too around this time of year (providing it isn’t pissing down as it has done a lot here recently).
Global Warming has got in the way of my sartorial elegance. With rising temperatures, the number of days when you have to ‘wrap up warm’ are shrinking every year. Never one to particularly feel the cold I find myself now wearing teeshirts under a light jacket even throughout most of the winter.
Many years back I bought a lumberjack style fleece in Canada that I adored – I wore it regularly for many years until the elastic bottom went kaput. It was functional and looked tendy – what could be better.
Never tried Craghopper fleeces but can vouch for their walking trousers.
I do love a fashion thread but I’m afraid I’m firmly a car coat man. However, this has reminded me that I need another pack of three blue M&S shirts.
Talking of M&S coats, I don’t shop there much, but was being dragged through the place by my GLW last year and I spotted a rather nice coat…dark blue, about knee length, and quite reasonably priced. ‘Try it on…’ she says….it just felt great from the moment I put it on. I guess it is a bit like the old crombie coats the mods used to wear, but it really looked the business. I often wear it out just over a shirt if going somewhere nice.
Ah. A smidge long for a car coat but, otherwise, sounds right up my street.
I’m not actually sure what a fleece is. Is it just a jumper with a zip?
Probably too warm for me. I’m always too warm. It’s October, I’m in Glasgow and today I was walking about at lunchtime with just a thin shirt and no jacket.
(Obviously I had trousers as well).
No, no, no. Horrible things almost exclusively manufactured from synthetic materials derived from precious mineral by-products.
Try a thermal cotton vest with a cotton Mousqueton or Seasalt smock over the top.
Practicality with style, or so I tell myself.
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
White flannel trousers, of course.
and no socks?
Yes. White, in homage to Dirk.
Turn ups are all the rage right now.
Particularly, if like me, you have a pair of legs that don’t reach the ground.
All that gas, eh? Who needs a hoverboard? Not Moosey!
The crucial thing, though, Moosey, is: do you dare to eat a peach?
No, but I have parted my hair behind (whatever that means)
I always assumed that was to cover up a shiny scalp (‘how his hair is growing thin’), and the peach was a barely cryptic sexual reference.
Oh, a combover?
I took the peach thing literally. They can be very messy.
Lord no. Buy some Uniqlo HeatTech (basically thermal underwear with good PR), then you can go about your business in your normal clothes. There’s no excuse for the fleece.
Crikey! If style icon John Shuttleworth is rocking a fleece then count me in!
He is a pop guru who has helped me with many of my life’s most difficult decisions.
All too often, going back to savoury is not an option.
Been away for a couple of days on grandpa duty and we seem to have moved on from Extinction Rebellion to the joys of the fleece. Lord keep and protect the Afterword.
For the record, I ‘rock’ no fleeces except a black sleeveless number that appeared from Lord knows where when we moved to Folkestone. Dominic Cummings and I are founder-members of les gilets noirs.
ER… fleeces… can we talk about Waitrose now before we forget how profoundly middle-aged and middle-class we are?
What about that cauliflower rice, eh?
Why not. What do you have to say? (I have a, er, sachet, in my larder, so watch your step.)
I daren’t…. you’re hard. Can I buy you a drink?
You can buy me a schooner if you like. Yrs etc, Capt Onedin.
Wan Newkie Broon comin’ oop!
With the recent ending of the ‘Poldark’ reboot, the ‘One Din Line’ must be next for the redoing. Or ‘I Clavdivs’.
So it’s not just me who calls them that
(who was it who coined those names. I’m thinking Terry Wogan? It’s early and my brain isn’t working yet)
Both my partner and I called it ‘I Clavdivs’ back in the day, and has always been One Din for me. One or other might have been in a Morecambe & Wise?
Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse did the renaming thing in their BBC2 documentary recently- also re-branded one show as Ask The Ugly Family.
The history must be older than that, and it does sound like an Eric-ism
I think I read that in the Morny Stannit.
Get out of that! You can’t, can you?
Is there any consensus on Veedon Fleece?
Nice and warm, best worn in cold weather but not too cold.
It’s not as good as Anorak Weeks… [I’ll get me coat]
http://www.veedonfleece.com/
Not actual clothing!
Not yet.
Van Morrison (Official)™ is neglecting a golden marketing opportunity here.
Unless The Veedon Fleece Fleece is planned as an extra for a deluxe box-set reissue…
Will it have a harmonica pocket?
Let’s hope it’s not a scratch ‘n sniff cover…
Definitely not a scratch ‘n sniff harmonica pocket.
In a sense, we all have a harmonica pocket
Nah nah! As a Shetlander in Shetland a Fair Isle gansey is the only way to go.
Sorry to be a fly in the ointment here but every time you wash a fleece, you’re putting lots of plastic microfibres into the water supply. There are ways around this according to my well informed wife. You can purchase either a guppy bag or a coral ball apparently (whatever they are). The cheaper alternative is obviously never to wash them.
Even cheaper never to buy them.
I used to have quite a selection of fleeces in various states of paint/grease/plaster/cement staining. In the colder months, on large-ish building projects, branded ones tend to get handed out as part of your PPE when you start on site. After I retired I threw all but the cleanest, newest one out (clothing recycling bins) but that one has now gone too, in favour of A.) a really warm quilt-lined black 3/4 length weatherproof coat, B.) a light Harrington-style jacket with a detachable woolen lining and C.) a zip-up hoodie. I also keep a warm 3/4 length hi-vis weatherproof coat (with foldaway hood) in the car in case of breakdowns in bad weather. What I currently lack is a smart crombie-style overcoat for when smart clothing is required.
I mentioned above that I bought a crombie type coat from M&S last year and I love it…!
I am in awe of the clothing vocabulary that Brits have. I have trouble imagining what these various garments are. I do, however, have a shortish herringbone coat which looks quite stylish with raised collar. Even more stylish if you can get just one side of the collar to stand up. Sort of roguish.
It gets cold enough here to wear it about two or three times a year.