Victorian 80’s chic!
Cardigan sweaters are my jam. I love a zip up sweater with a hood. But I’ll take one with no hood but a cool collar. I’d try one with snaps or buttons but have just never seen one I like because usually those make me look frumpy because buttons are usually put onto sweaters with giant chunky cable knits. I’m built like an athletic troll so I need my outerwear to be tailored and streamlined, so chunky cable knits are a bad look for me.
So when I saw Anthropologie was having a 40% off sale, I spent an afternoon hunting through their website for some cardigans. They aren’t a very common type of sweater to find so when I saw a bright yellow sweater that went in at the waist and had a zipper, I thought I had died and gone to heaven and popped it right in my cart. Scrolling along I found a cute baby blue cardigan with buttons, I guess(??) I couldn’t really tell from the photo so I ordered that one too.
The day finally came when my cardigans arrived. I breathlessly tore the box open and tried on the yellow zippered one. Omg, it was crazy!!! I think that ever since The Crown featured Princess Di and all her 80’s princess puffed sleeved fashion styles everyone thinks they should make all sleeves gigantic and puffy because they looked good on a tv show about an actual, over the top, 80’s princess!
My yellow sweater was fitted but it went in at the waist and cinched it as if I were wearing an 1800’s knitted corset. And the sleeves, even Princess Di would have thought the sleeves were too much. They poofed up from the shoulders and then ballooned giantly throughout the entire arm’s length until they cinched back in tightly at the wrist.
“Well I like the color!.” I thought to myself. “Maybe it’s flattering.”
I walked over to the mirror and let out a little scream. I looked like a middle aged Princess Di obsessed mental patient that was knitting up a storm in my facility. I returned it to the box and set my sights on the baby blue cable knit.
I like the look of it folded up nicely in the box. I pulled it out and it expanded to three times the size. It too had insanely large ballooning sleeves but this sweater was like a giant sweaterish form that had no structure and, I’m not a knitter so I don’t know the right words to describe it, but the yarn was really wide and thick so when it was knitted together in a complex pattern it was like wearing a bathroom rug. And ya, they called it a cardigan but is it really a cardigan if there’s just one giant button at the neck? Again, as a child of the eighties I could see they were borrowing from the era again. I remember in elementary school seeing classmates wearing blouses held together in the back by just one giant, fluorescent pink button.
Needless to say, I am still, and forever will be on my cardigan sweater search.
