KLM Christmas jumper, 2022 (TRC 2023.0176).(Leiden, 1 February 2023) Last December, Willem and I flew with KLM to Rome for a brief holiday (and to do some textile hunting). We travelled on Christmas Day, and we were amused to see the festive clothing of the onboard KLM staff. One of the stewardesses even did a little twirl for us. Back in Holland we wrote to KLM asking whether we could have one of their Christmas garments for the TRC Collection.

The answer was positive, and yesterday we received a parcel containing a KLM Christmas jumper (TRC 2023.0176). We also received some information about the jumper, which provides some interesting details, not only about the jumper itself, but also about the process that led up to its production. The text below was written by Manon Leeuwerink, Operations Engineer at the Crew Service Hub.

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KLM crew with their Christmas jumpers

In 2017 KLM produced a Christmas jumper for its employees and others. This proved to be a huge success. In the beginning of 2022 the KLM management suggested to design a new Christmas jumper.  Lisa Oosterwijk (my manager) and I did some research and worked out a proposal for our Management Team. They gave us the go-ahead and in May we officially started working on the Christmas Jumper 2022. We also contacted other KLM departments that are working with BrandPremiums (Communication Consultancy).

Together with them we designed and developed the jumper. We had several design rounds and material options. The 2017 edition was 100% acrylic, but we wanted to be as sustainable as possible. Of course it also needed the fluffy feeling of the 'true' Christmas jumper. Therefore we decided to do a combination of 90% recycled acrylic and 10% polyamide. In addition to the jumper we decided also to develop KLM Christmas socks, as a surprise. They have the same design as the jumper.

Pair of KLM Christmas socksAnother sustainable decision was to develop the jumper in Turkey instead of China.

The design

• The colours used for the jumper are the official KLM colours.
• At the bottom of the jumper are the KLM houses. You receive a KLM house when you have a seat in KLM Business Class. In between the houses is the control tower of Schiphol. This is a well-known image for all our employees.
• Above the houses are typical travel icons: an aeroplane, a globe, the KLM logo of course, a trolley case and another plane.
• In the middle of the jumper we wanted to emphasise the Christmas theme and an eye-catcher. On the front is a picture of a KLM aeroplane with Santa Claus in a sleigh being pulled along. And on the back BrandPremiums came with the catchy phrase: 'All I want for Christmas is Blue!'
• We wanted to keep the top of the jumper simple, but in the context of the Christmas theme. So we let the orange line come back again with some larger snowflakes.
• The sleeves are in line with the design.

Mid-October the jumper and socks went into production and in November the garments were delivered to the KLM Catering Warehouse. Since there was no more webshop and developing a webshop for just one or two products was too expensive, we decided to sell the jumpers (and socks) on special live-sale days at the KLM warehouse location at Schiphol East. This way the jumper (and socks) were only available for employees.

We had five live-sale days, and they were a huge success. The first day there was a queue of more than an hour. These live-sale days were possible because of the enthusiasm of volunteers from different departments within KLM who helped us sell the jumpers and socks.

Some facts:

• We had a total of 10,000 jumpers and 5,000 pairs of socks. All items completely sold out.
• We had four sizes: small, medium, large and extra large.
• The socks were in one size: ‘one size fits most’.
• The jumper cost thirty euros and the socks five.

Back and front of the 2022 KLM Christmas jumper.

The profit we made by selling the Christmas jumpers and socks is donated to our own charity: Wings of Support. Wings of Support is an independent initiative of employees of the KLM Royal Dutch Airline Group. They help children by facilitating education, care and medical assistance, for example. Their goal is to achieve sustainable improvement in the quality of children's lives in their own living environment.

PS: The TRC would love also to receive a pair of KLM Christmas socks for its collection.......