Swanndri Bush Shirt

The Swanndri bush shirt is a heavy woollen pullover cut long enough to reach the thigh or knee, worn over everything as a coat. It has no opening down the front: it goes on over the head, and a short laced placket at the chest, with a storm flap, can be loosened when the wearer warms up. A deep hood, lined in grey, sits at the neck, and a single large pocket with a buttoned flap is set on the chest. The body is cut from one piece of cloth, front hem to back hem, with no shoulder seams. The classic colour is olive green; there are also checks in red and black, and blue and black.

The name came first. William Broome, an English tailor in New Plymouth, registered Swanndri as a trademark two days before Christmas in 1913, for a short-sleeved woollen overshirt soaked in a waterproofing mixture whose recipe he kept secret. Water was meant to run off it as off a swan. Because the soak shrank the cloth unevenly, every shirt was sold in one size.

The garment on this page took shape in 1927, when, according to Te Papa and the company, the tailor John McKendrick added the hood, the laced front and the long sleeves and chose the olive, making it under licence from the Broome family. Accounts differ on when McKendrick took the business over, and the date rests on those two sources. It became the uniform of New Zealand's farmers, hunters and bush workers, many of whom, Te Papa found, call theirs 'Old Faithful'.

Proofing by chemical soak was dropped in favour of dense, pre-shrunk wool, so the shirt now comes in sizes. Since 2005 most Swanndri garments have been made overseas from New Zealand wool; the Original is cut from cloth weighing 475 grams a square metre. Swanndri calls the Original the longest-standing product in its range, and sells it, hood, laces and all, on both sides of the world.