’Tis the season to bring back an old friend: the humble long johns
What’s your favourite type of long johns? Silver? Baldry? The answer you are looking for, at any rate, is that warm and cosy, figure-hugging, bum-warming, cod-piece-affiliated, feel-good hit of the winter – a pair of woollen long johns. And guess what? They’re back.
“Back from where?” you might ask. Well, while your high-street brands, online utility merchants and hiking outlets have often kept producing slightly sad but serviceable long johns, the upper end of the market has pooh-poohed them. A bit like the traditional British vest, long johns appeared to be something that reminded the cooler customer of knock-kneed 1970s schoolboys. For a while, it was impossible to imagine long johns without conjuring images of nametags stitched into overwashed Airtex, just below a slightly perished, elasticated waistband. The long john has been on apparel’s naughty step. A thing of the past.
Now, however, Johannes longus (that 1970s schoolboy did know his Latin) has been brought back from extinction. How do we know of this fashionable rehabilitation? Well, beloved British knitwear brand John Smedley – of the stealth-wealth charcoal cardigan and silhouette-flattering navy sweater – has enlisted the sartorial services of cinema’s wizened master of cool Bill Nighy to “do” a range for them. And guess what? Yup, the British actor loves a leg firmly – but no longer unfashionably – sheathed in fine merino wool. Better yet, make it cashmere, which forms a key component in Nighy’s collection for Smedley.
Nighy apparently wears a pair of long johns on set whenever he’s shooting a film or show and so they’re clearly personal. And they are personal, long johns. Intimate. They go to the heart of the matter. Along with that, of course, they conjure an image slightly absurd: men in tights. For every Nureyev or Nijinsky – muscular, balletic and toned – there is a man getting dressed on the first morning of his skiing holiday. The unfamiliar thermal layers being bandily hopped into. A skintight woollen torpedo.
“The idea of not wearing long johns in winter is just anathema to me, especially as contemporary trousers are normally so thin,” says Patrick Grant, founder of Community Clothing, who grew up in Edinburgh and currently lives in chilly North Yorkshire. “I mean, if it’s cold we put five layers on our top half but then wander about with next to nothing on our bottom half – it’s madness.” Community Clothing is also set to launch a set of long johns this winter. “There is infinite scope for jollity with a long john: how many bottles can you get down the front, what sort of vegetables can you stick down there?” adds Grant. “But don’t let that get in the way of the joy of having a warm downstairs.” Quite so. Welcome back to the front of the underwear drawer, old friends. Why were you ever sent away?
Robert Bound is a contributing editor at Monocle. For more opinion, analysis and insight, subscribe to Monocle today.
