Scottish, English, or French heritage, wore high-neck collars while working in or around the North Sea, giving the style some credibility. And for a time during the late 19th century, the style graduated to sport and became associated with bicycling, tennis, and polo (perhaps why this is sometimes known as a polo neck). In an old article on turtlenecks, Bruce Boyer says that, “for most of its life it’s had this dual image of a street-smart tough on the one hand, and an aesthete on the other.”

This utilitarian aspect never left the turtleneck in fact or symbol. Many World War II sailors who fought the Battle of the North Atlantic were terribly glad for their thick wool turtlenecks and watch caps during long, dark, penetratingly cold nights ondeck. We see them at the rail, the dark top of the sweater peeking out from the pea coat, binoculars slung ‘round the neck. […] The archetypal post-WWII beatniks made the black turtleneck sweater a part of their daily outfit that included various berets, goatees, jeans, army surplus khaki trousers and field jackets, dark glasses, and bongo drums. In Steven Watson’s The Birth of the Beat Generation, there is a wonderful photo of a young William Burroughs standing in an alley outside of his home in Tangier (which he called the Villa Delirium, “the original anything goes joint”) wearing most of the requisite gear, including a black turtleneck sweater.

This was, in fact, only a slightly extreme version of what many university students – many of them ex-soldiers –