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Cardigans are currently the darling of the fashion world. How far they have come. Rewind five years and they were viewed as frumpy and the sort of thing your mother might dress you in, age four. Then came Harry Styles and his JW Anderson patchwork situation and suddenly everyone — but in particular, men — was wearing one.
Today, you can find a cardigan in most Autumn/Winter collections, from runway to high street. There are slim-fit cardigans and chunky ones, Argyle-pattern cardigans and ones covered in embellishments.
Where did it all begin? With a foppish aristocrat and the Crimean War. Obviously.
James Brudenell, 7th Earl of Cardigan, was a lieutenant general in the British Army and best known for leading the Charge of the Light Brigade at the Battle of Balaclava in 1854. Wealthy and stylish, he spent £10,000 a year (more than £1.2 million in today’s money) outfitting his regiment. He also introduced his men to a knitted waistcoat that they could layer underneath their uniforms. The garment — which was warm, breathable and practical — soon became a style, spurred on by friends and family at home who sent homemade versions to the front line. Rumour has it that the style developed into something we would recognise today when the Earl — whose overcoat has been damaged in a fire — requested a version of his waistcoat with sleeves. And so the seed of the cardigan was (quite literally) sewn.
Though he left his Army posting after little more than a year, tales of the Earl’s valour (greatly boosted by him telling his own stories) turned him into something of a celebrity. Merchants could be found selling pictures of his likeness and knitted cardigans (with and without sleeves) — and the latter were soon being produced on a commercial scale.
French fashion designer Coco Chanel in her apartment at the Hotel Ritz Paris in about 1960, wearing one of her famous cardigan suits.
In 1908, American Vogue suggested that a cardigan-like knit would be useful for women who played golf and tennis — pandering to the growing craze for fashionable leisurewear. It was Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel, however, who propelled the cardigan to high-fashion heights. The French designer, tiring of the way that tight-necked sweaters mussed up her hair when she pulled them over her head, took shears to one and sewed a ribbon around the collar. ‘Everyone went crazy, saying “Where did you get that?”’ she recalled. The Chanel cardigan suit is perhaps one of the most iconic and revolutionary styles to appear on the catwalk in the last century and to this day, high street brands such as Zara imitate it on an annual basis.
A guest at Chanel's 2025 Paris Fashion Week show.
Other prominent figures that are also intertwined with the cardigan include Albert Einstein, whose close-knit wool version with turn-up cuffs gave rise to the idea that the garment signalled intellect, Steve McQueen and an off-duty Don Draper. Daniel Craig and David Beckham are regularly photographed in shawl-collar cardigans; Katie Holmes’s taupe Khaite cardigan, layered over a matching bralet, broke the internet in 2019.
That being said, not every designer shares in the enthusiasm — perhaps scarred by its fall from favour in the late 20th century. When First Lady Michelle Obama wore a black Alaia cardigan for tea with Elizabeth II in April 2009, Oscar de la Renta exclaimed: ‘You don’t go to Buckingham Palace in a sweater!’ And designer Jean-Paul Gaultier dismissed cardigans as ‘the way we dress when we have no money’. I cannot speak for the former, but with Hollywood stars and royalty donning them (The Prince of Wales entered his ‘cardigan era’ earlier this year), I think we can contest the former.
