The Collegiate Sweatshirt

We have fun with colour with our new collegiate letter sweatshirts.

While I’m sure we can all agree on the importance of dressing well, if one isn’t careful style can become a terribly serious business. There is – and always will be – a time and a place for sober, tailored clothing, and there are a handful of basic rules that one should try and stick to, for the most part. But dressing should be a pleasure first, and a discipline second, so if you aren’t having fun along the way then what’s the point?

It’s no secret that we lean towards the ‘classic’ end of the spectrum, however, we firmly believe that men cannot live on tailoring alone. That’s why we like to indulge our light-hearted side from time to time, and there is no better example of this than our new collegiate sweatshirts.

“These aren’t exactly subtle, but nor were they meant to be,” Michael Hill explains, “they’re playful and deliberately hard to ignore in their bright colours. I can honestly say that designing these sweatshirts was one of the most fun projects I’ve worked on.”

It’s important to note, however, that these sweatshirts aren’t just fun for fun’s sake: they are intended to fill a gap in men’s wardrobes. “As with our rugby shirts and hiking jerseys, the collegiate sweatshirts were made in Japan, this time using a lovely, high-quality loopback jersey. Anyone who’s familiar with Japanese loopback sweatshirts knows that they’re the best, and while they’re certainly not impossible to find in the western market, you rarely see them in anything other than the usual boring colours. Every man already has a grey marl sweatshirt – we wanted to offer something different.”

It’s true that a refined colour palette will always look elegant, but you can never underestimate the power of a judicious splash of colour. “Every winter, some of our most popular items are the brightly-coloured brushed Shetland jumpers we do. I see the collegiate sweatshirts as the summer counterpart of these – you can wear them under a tailored jacket, with chinos, with denim.”

The finishing touch on the collegiate sweatshirt is the ‘D’ logo on the chest, inspired by classic ivy league university jumpers with the institution’s initial emblazoned on the chest. Rather than being rendered in a contrasting colour, the letter instead contrasts in texture, using the reverse of the loopback fabric as a textural counterpoint to the outer face of the jersey. “It’s a little reference to ivy, which we love. One of my favourite things about menswear is the many layers of references that can go into a single garment. Here we have something which was designed in the UK, inspired by American clothing, and manufactured in Japan – a country with its own obsession with Americana and ivy style, of course. It’s these juxtapositions of culture that produce truly interesting results.”

Shop Polos & Sweatshirts