Long Live Wool Fleece.

26.09.2025

“The Cardigan and the knitted fabric we call "Wool Fleece" are the perfect mix for all seasons—for so many of our customers it's the go-to piece.”—David Keyte, UW Co-Founder and Lead Designer.

This year will be our eighth using the fabric we call Wool Fleece. So why wait a decade before we celebrate it, why not celebrate it right now?

Ever wondered about the history of Wool Fleece at Universal Works? How did it come to exist? How did the UW Cardigan gain its sort-of-cult status? Let’s start at the beginning...

The Wool Fleece Cardigan made its debut in Autumn/Winter 2017. Head to the Collection Archive HERE to see more.

A fabric agent (someone who showcases fabrics to brands like us), on retiring, sent us a parting gift, a swatch of fabric typically used for sports and outerwear, from a small Italian knitting mill he was representing. He had a hunch we might be interested... He was right!

We took five metres of the fabric to our maker in India, sat in their office and sketched a simple cardigan shape. We worked together on proportion, finish, and trims. Then we had to name the style and fabric, being told we needed to decide on the day, we called it Wool Fleece Cardigan. Simple, easy, classic.

After the initial couple of seasons, our Wool Fleece products are all now made in Portugal, pictured above.

Wool Fleece comes in lots of colourways, styles and shapes; each season we switch up the colours available.

Fast forward to today it has proven to be, by far, our most successful style and fabric. The combination of knitting construction and yarn content, which is a wool-polyester blend, creates warmth without weight and takes colour really well.

Over the years we have made some some slight improvements to the fit and details, and one thing we are particularly proud of is that we have been able to change the polyester in the fabric to a recycled version, which is thanks to the volume we are now buying.

The rolls are pretty bulky, and there is less metreage on each roll because of this. So the makers of our Wool Fleece pieces now have extra storage facilities to accommodate all the fleece we need!

We think Wool Fleece sums us up: simple, stylish, practical, utilitarian. You can see our roots in workwear, but as a contemporary piece of clothing now synonymous with everything we do. Taking something that was once used for something else (in this case, sportswear) and making it work in so many different ways.

It is now worn across ages and across genders. We are so proud to have created pieces that can be worn whether you are aged 17 or 70 (or 100, but this didn’t sound as good...)—and now even more so, with our Zip Liners, gilets and jackets also available in Wool Fleece.

From happy, unlikely beginnings, a legend grew. Long live Wool Fleece.

Shop fleece cardigans here or shop our wool fleece collection here.