Just last week, J. Hilburn provided us with a sweater, which we would like to preview today.Although J. Hilburn orginally began by offering Made-to-Measure shirts, currently they also offer Ready-to-Wear sweater collections among other things. Personally, I liked the Siena Seedstitch model the most, which has a two tone barleypickle / barleycorn pattern.
It also features a mock neck collar with a button placket, which I find to be a welcome alternative next to the array of crew neck and v-neck sweaters available on the market otherwise.
Surprisingly, the buttons are made of real mother-of-pearl in a nice shade of grey. Usually, most Ready-to-Wear garments feature just imitation MOP plastic buttons, which cost just a fraction of a real MOP button but it also looks considerably worse in my opinion. A nice looking, high quality button can really enhance the look of a garment drastically, no matter whether it is a shirt, a polo shirt or a sweater. If most of your garments have cheap plastic buttons on them, you should think about exchanging them for real buttons made of horn, bone, corozo or mother-of -pearl – I am sure you will also find that to be a huge improvement. In addition to that, the buttons on the sweater feature a shank which is very important on a thick sweater because otherwise the fabric would show wrinkles around the buttonhole when buttoned. This way, it looks very neat when it is buttoned.
The buttonholes on the other hand are not outstanding; they have been sewn first and the whole was punched afterwards. While this method is very economical and therefore seen on almost all Ready-to-Wear garments, there always remains a certain amount of fraying on the inside of the buttonhole.
My favorite color would have been the purplish-blue shown in the pictures. Unfortunately, this model was already sold out and so I decided to go with the pale blue sweater in M. The two ply yarn used for this seed stitch sweater is made of 85% Merino wool /15% cashmere and supposedly comes from Loro Piana. However, it was knitted in China. The sweater seems to be well made and has a soft touch.
When I put on the sweater, I immediately noticed the rather small armholes and rather slim sleeves. Generally, sweaters in the US are far too roomy in my opinion with a huge armhole, wide sleeves and an enormous drop, meaning that the chest measurement is considerably wider than the waist measurement. In this case, the sweater is noticeably slimmer than the average one but still a little wide around the waist and especially around the chest. My arms are rather long (35″ from the middle of the yoke to my wrist) and the sleeve length is just fine.
In the following weeks, I will test the sweater more thoroughly, wash it and see how it stands up to everyday wear.
The sweater is priced at $129 but it seems like there are occasional sales going on at J. Hilburn. Last but not least, I should mention that J. Hilburn is not an internet service but much rather build on its network of more than 700 agents across the US. Once you set up a meeting with one of them, they visit you at home or at your office. Their website can be reached at www.jhilburn.com
