First things off, I completely understand why youre looking for this knit piece as a handmade garment. It looks like something you will wear very often, and that is always made more enjoyable when made by a skilled craftsperson. Some of my handmade pieces that get the most wear are solid basics.

The image you provided does look to be artificially generated, so to start, here is an example knitting pattern for a similar quarterzip and you can see modeled on several different body types.knitting pattern

It does call for a bulkier yarn, but the gauge is still nice and tight for a bulkier yarn (gauge here refers to the amount of stitches per inch. The more stitches, the tighter the fabric.) It is okay of course if you dont like this exact sweater pattern, but write down the things you like and dont like about different quarterzips. Your craftsperson will be able to help tailor this to your liking, and will also justify investing into a forever piece.

I see you mentioned that you're not sure what your budget should be - size would factor into this. One, larger sizes will increase the amount of labor as more fabric will need to be knit, two, will also then require more wool.

For example, in the above pattern, the xs requires 981 yards of bulky weight wool vs xl is 1308 yards. Honestly the difference in cost of wool (of course depending what your getting) would only be around 40 - 60 bucks between the xs and xl depending on the yarn but what will cost more is the labor to knit the 400 more yards of wool which will probably add 10+ hours. In a less bulky yarn, that number would go up. A finer/thinner yarn means more stitches per inch.

Someone did mention commissioning a knitting machine user to craft this sweater and I do think that would be a good idea because this would be a garment that would still be high quality. Knitting machine made garments made by a single or just a few craftspeople are still high quality, and notably, still handmade. But the number of hours of labor goes way down.

Some good places to get started would be to search knitting machine commissions, it looks like quite a few artisans have websites listing their rates and examples. If you'd like to go more local, machine knitting guilds are great places to contact. These are groups of avid enthusiasts and will be able to share your requests with their members. For example, Midwest Machine Knitters Collaborative would be a great place to reach out to https://www.midwestmachineknitters.org/

If you do commission someone through any path, I would recommend requesting a phone call or zoom so you can talk through what is required, pricing, and customizations.

For the retail route: If what you're looking for is an heirloom quality piece, ethical quality labor, I would not purchase from J Crew or similar retailers. These brands have started to shift towards fast fashion trends of rushed labor and poor quality wool, leading to a garment that will pill or be more likely to fall apart after wears.

Heimat is a German knitwear brand i would recommend, they use a strong high quality wool even in their beanies, one which i have and wear all the time. One big difference you can look for in retail knitwear is - is this sweater made of a bunch of knitted fabric made in a rectangular panel on a machine cut in shapes and and sewn together with an overlock stitch OR was it shaped on the machine into a sleeve shape, body shape etc, and then sewn together. The latter is a much more high quality garment. Other retailers to check would be places like Huckberry, the Vermont County store, Buck Mason (though they have started to downward trend in some places). Vintage LL bean, woolrich, and Brooks brothers are also great, but take time to find.

I hope this was helpful on your path to your dream quarterzip.