http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/12/fashion/12CODES.html?_r=1&ref=fashion&oref=slogin
there is a slide show on that page
The Cardigan, Fashions Sad Sack, Shapes Up
By DAVID COLMAN
Published: October 12, 2006
FASHION watchers may go on about Oscar bloopers like Kim Basingers one-armed dress or Barbra Streisands see-through pajamas, but for politicos, perhaps the greatest fashion belly-flop of the last half century occurred in the cold February of 1977. Just weeks after his inauguration, President
Jimmy Carter faced the nation, sitting fireside in a beige wool cardigan, and told the United States to turn down its thermostat. They were words no one wanted to hear.
The cardigan, already synonymous with the numbingly inoffensive style of one Mr. Rogers, completely unraveled, becoming an emblem of President Carters wet-blanket austerity. Even those who didnt link the sweater with the policy looked on it as a professorial hair shirt, a state only amplified by its saggy shape. It took a complete revamping in the 90s, with a jaunty zipper and 60s-skiwear silhouette, to give the cardigan a shiver of coolness.
Now the old button-up has been rediscovered, just as President Carter and energy conservation have. And a lot of men, even guys in their 30s and 40s, have forgotten all about the Carter cardigan.
I dont remember that, said Jim Moore, the creative director of GQ.
No, really? said Thom Browne, who has made the cardigan a staple of his three-year-old mens wear line. Who knew?
Style-conscious men today are more likely to see in the cardigan its midcentury glory days as the preferred knitwear of golf club swingers from Palm Springs to Edinburgh. Yet bookishness is still part of its appeal. That is certainly true for Mr. Browne, who is as likely to look to the 1920s antiheroes played by Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd geeks who got the girl as to the Duke of Windsor or Cary Grant.
It is also true for Miuccia
Prada, who sent cardigans down her mens runway three years ago. When it came off the runway a few years ago, I have to say that we were skeptical, Mr. Moore said. We thought, O.K., is it Perry Como, or is it Kurt Cobain? For a while I think some guys thought, It looks great on that guy from the Strokes, but I cant pull it off. Now it looks really cool, especially if you wear it with a skinny shirt and a Band of Outsiders tie.
This fall, virtually every fashion house has cardigans in its line: heavy rollers like Prada and Dsquared; upstarts like Nom de Guerre and Trovata; and populists like Banana Republic and Club Monaco. Some are thick knits, best suited to weekend wear. Some are fine-gauge wools, more appropriate for the suit-and-tie world. Some have contrasting trim, epaulets or patch pockets that look, respectively, a little kitschy, military or gentlemanly. But all have a trim shape that counters the given-up-on-style attitude that the old-school cardigan projects.
It is hard to argue with the cardigans common-sense values. Buttoned up or worn open, with a T-shirt or a dress shirt and tie, it is more versatile than a crewneck. It even has a kind of style logic.
Youre able to show all the different layers of everything youre wearing, so theres a dandyish aspect to it, said Alex Logsdail, 20, an intern at a Chelsea gallery and the proud wearer of cardigans by Cloak, Vivienne Westwood and John Smedley. It used to be seen as a little too feminine, but I think thats quite dated. It can be very stylish if cut properly.
While common sense has its appeal, its style cred carries more weight. I feel now thats it a cool, hip thing, said Bryce Wolkowitz, 33, a gallery owner in New York, who was packing two cardigans to go to the Frieze Art Fair in London this week. I remember when I was younger and trying to sport my fathers cardigans and never feeling like I was in step with fashion.
Mr. Wolkowitzs favorite, a Thom Browne style, has a lean, short cut with collegiate bands around the sleeve the varsity look. Theres something a bit highbrow about a cardigan, he said. Thats whats cool about it. So if I am just wearing a pair of jeans, it turns up the look.
Heaven knows, the cardigan deserves a fresh start. The sweater takes its name from the seventh Earl of Cardigan, James Thomas Brudenell, familiar to historians as the quarrelsome, vain British general who led the disastrous charge of the Light Brigade in Balaclava in 1854.
Ouch. Some 150 years later, with its casual practicality and geek-chic edge, the cardigan may at long last have earned a day in the sun. Which means, of course, that you can turn down the thermostat.
(btw, the guy in the last pic is Karl's boyfriend lol)
