About the Liberation of Shapeless Winter Sweaters
Hello from the aftermath of the Great New York Snowpocalypse. There's almost two feet of snow on my balcony, but we're still in the grace period before the city turns to a noxious soup of blackened slush and uncollected dog shit, so for now, it's nice.
As my apartment is expensive to heat, I'm writing this in long underwear and a sweater. The sweater is from a small British knitwear brand that gives its sweaters names. Mine is named Craske. It was inspired by 19th- and early 20th-century Norfolk fisherman jumpers, and made in Nottinghamshire from 100-percent Shetland wool. It's a beautiful shade of rusty orange and it is huge.
This sweater lives with a number of siblings in my half of the closet; each is a manifestation of my mild addiction to sustainable knitwear. Some of these sweaters arrived with actual bits of hay sticking out of them; some are so rough that they feel like wearable loofahs; some are so extravagantly shapeless that they make me resemble a sentient Weeble. All of them remind me of how susceptible I am to a certain kind of slow-fashion influencer, and that I have finally reached an age where I welcome the onset of winter and the waistline-agnostic clothing that accompanies it.
My experience growing up was one shared by many women, insofar as I was taught from an early age to dress in a way that flattered my body (without, of course, calling too much attention to it, which would make me the "wrong" kind of girl). This message didn't come from my parents but literally everywhere else. As a teenager, I rejected it: my de facto school uniform was one of my father's Pendleton flannel shirts, paired with equally amorphous trousers. But this rejection came less from conscious rebellion against societal norms than my own bodily discomfort: I favored clothing that allowed me to hide. Eventually, this affliction metastasized into the beginnings of an eating disorder that was thankfully treated before it wrecked my life. By the time I got to college I had come around to the idea of dressing to attract men; one of my most memorable purchases was a brown miniskirt so short that I couldn't easily sit down in mixed company.
Over time, I became very confident in my body, though this was intertwined with the compliments men paid it. So I dressed in ways that flattered it. And kept doing that straight through my twenties, thirties, and most of my forties. And then, compelled by slow-fashion Instagram, I bought a turtleneck sweater so oversized that I felt like I was once again 14 and raiding my father's flannel collection. The sweater was a sort of homecoming. But I didn't see it as a place to hide; I saw it more as an assertion of personal autonomy.
I know that's a lot to put on a piece of knitwear. But something about it just clicked for me and where I am in my life. And judging by the number of women I see in thrall to this particular knitwear brand, I'm not alone. Perhaps this is just the kind of thing that comes with being in your forties or older, or perhaps it's a reaction — conscious or otherwise — to an administration that is hostile to female bodies (and really any bodies that don't conform to its dictate of what the "right" kind American is).
All I can say for certain is that this endless winter has brought me some perverse relief. I've spent most of it swaddled in one sweater or another and trousers with elastic waistbands, and alternating between a "going out" jog bra and a "staying in" jog bra, and I have never felt more myself. Some people might term this kind of dressing as no longer caring, but for me, it's the opposite: I have finally lived long enough that I care more about myself than other people's opinions of myself.
I'll be happy when the snow finally melts and I can put on a pair of shorts. But a part of me will still long for winter, for the exquisite peace of existing beneath a generously proportioned pile of wool.
