High-Neck Sweaters for Short Necks
pattern: Peninsular Vest
yarn: Höner och Eir
When it comes to winter knitwear, I have an almost exclusive preference for high neck sweaters. Turtlenecks, cowl-necks, polo-necks, polar-necks if you will - whatever your version of English calls that ribbed tube of fabric that extends from the sweater’s neckline up to your chin.
In large part, my penchant for the high length is because I find it more convenient than lugging around scarves all the time. But also, I like the aesthetic. And it is this second bit I often get into discussions about - usually starting with a comment like this:
Love this sweater. But I have a short neck, so turtlenecks look unflattering on me.
Okay, so firstly just to get this out of the way: I am aware that ‘flattering’ is a loaded word. And it is my view that we do not owe it to anyone, to look good for them for their spectatorship or approval. But more importantly, the very notion that one kind of neck (or nose, or mouth, or forehead, or foot, or skin, or any part of the human body) is inherently ‘better’/ more desirable than another kind, stems from a hierarchical, commodifying, and inherently racist view of humanity, which is in itself deeply problematic.
It is also my view though, that every person has the right to want to look nice, according to their own standards and preferences, and according to their own definitions of what ‘looking nice’ entails. And it is not for me, or for anybody else, to decide whether their preferences are valid.
In other words: If you have a short neck and do not wish your sweater to accentuate this, you have a right to that preference and I accept it at face value. So that is the spirit in which I shall discuss this.
Moving on to what I actually want to say then:
The idea that a turtleneck/ polo-neck sweater will in itself inherently make your neck look shorter is a misconception.
The main visual marker of neck length, is the location of the lowest (not the highest) point of the front centre neckline.
If that last sentence was a bit confusing to process, I hope this picture illustrates what I am trying to explain.
Anna is the perfect model to show how this works, because she has an average length neck. And you can see that in the picture on the left, it looks short. Whereas on the picture on the right it looks long. Despite her wearing the same high-neck garment in both pictures. The only difference is that we raised the base of the neck at the front.
Think about it this way: A high neck sweater in fact hides your actual neck completely. You cannot see where your neck begins. This leaves opportunity to create an illusion of any neck length you like, by simply altering the visual indicator of where the neck begins.
If the illusion of a longer neck length is what you want, choose patterns where the neck opening dips slightly lower at the front. Or if needed, modify your existing pattern to create this effect. In any pattern with a traditional crewneck style neck opening, this should be fairly easy to do: If knitting top-down, start the neckline increases a few cm lower than where the pattern indicates it. And if knitting bottom-up, start them a few cm higher. For circular yoke patterns, lowering that front dip is less straightforward - but still doable: Add more short rows when shaping the necklines, spacing them out more frequently (fewer stitches between turns).
For what it’s worth, I myself have a short neck and this has never stopped me from wearing high-neck sweaters. The comfy/ warm factor alone is worth it. And the perceived neck length is easily adjusted, to whatever I happen to want it to be - long or short.
