Burtonwode Boxer Shorts Bear Fruit

To Autumn

Underwear often makes me think of poetry — sometimes a limerick. For the fine Fruit Boxer shorts you see above — made in London, England by Burtonwode — it was the first stanza of Keat's immortal To Autumn that popped into the old noggin, and that description of an abundant and maturing harvest period.

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness!  

  Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;  

Conspiring with him how to load and bless  

  With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;  

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,          

  And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;  

    To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells  

  With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,  

And still more, later flowers for the bees,  

Until they think warm days will never cease,   

  For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

The boxer shorts are in Burtonwode's Classic Cut style, with a five-panel construction designed so they stay in place. The cotton is printed in Carlisle using custom dyes, then finished to a plush, softened handlle.

The print on these shorts has a certain something about it that draws the eye.  I could see Bertie Wooster wearing these under his jazzy suits —  to Jeeves' disapproval —  though he'd be unlikely to be reciting Keats.

We have to say something about the packaging from Burtonwode. The shorts are presented in the lovely book-like box (with a magnetic fastener) that you see below. I'm sure you could think of multiple secondary uses for such a fine box; answers below if you feel so inclined.