Being machine washable and quick to dry, fleeces are a hell of a lot more practical than decent knitwear. But pleasant to look at? Not any I've ever seen.

I have owned fleeces in the past and worn them when trekking. No one can convince me they are Ivy.
I have two items of zipped knitwear. One is a made in Great Britain Jaeger number with just a neck zip. The jumper is beautiful but the zip is hideous. I wore it indoors the other day and I kept thinking is it possible to remove the zip and convert it somehow but sadly it isn't.

Some funny posts here - Kingstonian thinking a statue in zippered knitwear lacks gravitas, and The Laird Of Enfield (who was he? James Kelman an Ivyist?) worried about neck stubble.

Personally I think zips at the neck aren't Ivy, but J.Simons sold them, so they are.

Good stuff Lawrence J Smith, and the moths leave them alone, preferring finer knits and cashmere.

'If it was and is a practical joke then it would, to be fair, be a good one. With Chens at the helm I didn't think it could get any more absurd, but they certainly managed it.'

It's a parody

Which years are we talking about, R?  And, of course, weren't those awful woollen bags we adolescent suedeheads used to wear known as 'Ruperts'?  Maybe it was all some lunatic throwback not only to childhood but also Waugh and 'Brideshead Revisited' (which we watched on DVD earlier this year and thoroughly disliked, aside from some of the interior decorating; being on a brief John Fowler kick) and Archibald the teddy bear.  I seem to remember Gorman in that book of his linking the looks of 1971-5 to those of the 1920s and 1930s.  And teamed with basketweaves?  Odd.  Well, it was a strange period for fashion, both male and female.  I had a newly acquired stepbrother and stepsister in 1973 and they were full-on 'smooths', she with the chopped-about Rod Stewart hair and looking eminently shaftable in her tight polyester (or whatever) flares.

Good question!  I guess we thought it a little more grown-up than what had gone before, the DMs and Ben Sherman shirts etc.  Elms, for all his self-indulgent twattishness, does capture that period pretty well in 'The Way We Wore'.  That description of 'the lad' in 1975, without an ounce of style, just not caring, could have been the template for Right Now.  At least we had a little bit of imagination even if - at least in my neck of the woods - we were incapable of actually dreaming something up clotheswise.  But the cheaper shops and the market were cheek by jowl: the young herberts would just go from one to the others until they'd blown their pocket money.  There was also a record stall for them to buy their 45s.  LPs were for hairy grammar school would-be dope enthusiasts.  Emerson, Lake And Palmer, Lindisfarne.  Remember how we'd stack the 45s one on top of the other, hoping they'd fall and play in the right order?  The age of thirteen...  Girls were just beginning to take their clothes off for us...  Lesley...  Hazel...  where are you now?

'Good stuff Lawrence J Smith, and the moths leave them alone, preferring finer knits and cashmere.'

TRS, I wish I still had it, could wear whilst gardening in the Autumn/Winter channeling my inner Monty Don.

Couldn't agree more Robbie.

I think Monty Don carries the look well because he’s actually doing the work. If he was dressed like that sitting in an East End porridge bar there’d be an element of ‘cosplay’, which is my problem with the whole denim/workwear thing.
I’d do zip neck if the collar rolled down fairly big. Never full zip. Too ‘special offer in The Mail on Sunday magazine’ for me.

He did! I loved that he’d turn up on here, clearly knowing a hell of a lot about the subject, but not attempting to dress much like it. He didn’t take it at all seriously, was comfortable in his own skin/clothes and kind of ruled because of it. Whenever I’ve veered too closely to that look I felt too self conscious of it and clearly couldn’t pull it off