French Pullover, Olive Drab, Surplus

We got a batch of French wool pullovers. These are kind of short, so if you fancy wearing your pants like Clint Eastwood, here’s a thick and pretty sharp woolen sweater on the cheap.

FEATURES

This garment conforms to the traditions of the military woolen sweater. Reinforcements on the shoulders and elbows in case you want to use this as a top layer. A pair of epaulettes on the shoulders and usually a place for a name tag on the chest. You can unstitch the name tag off if you wish. The fabric itself is thick and well suited for winter use. The neckline is round and the pullover looks pretty sharp in general.

As mentioned, these are short. They probably never have been very long, but have shortened a little bit more from shrinkage due to washing. However, they are perfectly functional if you wear your trousers where they should be, which is high. The sleeves share the shortness, but you should roll them up anyway, before raising a glass of Pastis to your lips on a sunny Alpine morning. In reality they have probably thought that the sleeve cuffs of the sweater should not crumple up under the jacket's sleeve cuffs or extend beyond them to hinder the use of gloves or something. You should also consider such matters when thinking about the attire of the day.

Material and care

The fabric is 55% wool and 45 % something called "chlorofibre" which is kinda like polyester, but not quite. It has pretty good characteristics when it comes to insulation, moisture wicking properties and fast drying. It does not melt when burnt, but emits toxic particles amongst the smoke, so you'd be best keeping the shirt and open flame apart from each other, like any garment containing "plastics". You can machine wash these at 30 °degrees Celsius (86 °F) with a wool cycle.

Note: these pullovers have a distinct smell, probably caused by a conserving agent used to store them. Regular users of military surplus clothing might not find anything unusual about it, while for others, it might be too much. You can mitigate, or even remove, the odor by airing them out well and subjecting them to a more pleasurable scent, such as cedarwood. In any case all of the old odors will likely dissipate over time.

SIZE

These are pretty simple: your chest in centimeters. This is more of a guideline than an accurate measurement due to the usage and washing history of each example. You can lengthen the short sleeves by unpicking them open from the cuff and sewing them on again to a different spot.

Our model is 175 cm tall (with arms more fit for a 178 cm person) with a 96 cm chest and chose his recommended size, which is 96, or Medium. He's wearing our Tactical Jeans to show where the hem reaches with a standard height waist.

FRENCH SURPLUS

You won’t find any field repairs or holes here. They are in pretty decent condition, apart from the shrinkage and scent.