How do you put a Christmas jumper on a Dinosaur? Alum Snahal Patel knows!

Last Christmas, ‘Rex’ the animatronic Tyrannosaurus Rex was decked out in its very own supersize version of the Natural History Museum’s Christmas Jumper for all of December. The jumper was masterminded by Natural History Museum buyer and product developer, Carla Treasure, and also Snahal Patel (LGS 2002) who is the Director of Jack Masters Knitwear factory in Leicester and who made the giant jumper.

The entire process of fitting and knitting the jumper took approximately 100 hours with four fittings and prototype jumpers required. During the fitting process, the museum technicians paused the T. Rex’s animatronics to allow the team to measure Rex using step ladders and a very long measuring tape. The final jumper measured nearly 4 ft around the neck, 9 ½ ft around the shoulders and just over 10 ft around the body. The jumper weighs approximately 12.5 times the size of an average child’s Christmas jumper!

This year, Snahal and his team have decked out Rex once again for the festive season in a jumper with tiny dinosaurs wearing Santa hats. Rex’s look is complete with snow and a giant Santa hat. The jumper is made from 100% recycled yarn, using post-consumer waste cotton and polyester from recycled plastic bottles. Rex’s jumper is a replica of the much smaller jumpers in the Natural History Museum’s shop.

Rex will be wearing the festive outfit throughout the festive season, until Tuesday 3 January!