The crimplene years

There is a species of cardigan that comes up on EBay from time to time; they are always described as vintage and sometimes the subject of heated bidding wars. I've never seen anyone wearing one, but I do own a couple.

Quite when they date from is unclear to me; I'm guessing late 60's or early 70's. They are characterised by three major attributes each of which I'll deal with separately.

First, the material; they were made of a polyester fibre of some thickness and inherent stiffness. The kind of texture I associate with the period. Think drip dry shirts or crease resistant trousers (they will have been called slacks at the time, I'm sure) made of a substance called crimplene. These materials were lifeless, didn't relax or "fall" into a shape and felt like plastic. They were inclined to build up massive charges of static electricity in normal wear. It's a tragedy, but we knew no better at the time, these things were modern and groovy. Patterning on the material was geometric, often squares. A peculiarity of the design was that the patterning was applied only to the front, the back and sleeves were in a plain finish.

Probably arising from the properties outlined above we see the particular cut of these cardigans. Laid out flat, they were essentially square, no sculpting to body shape or any effort to contour them to mimic a real or idealised body outline.

The finishing touch was the buttons, nearly always five in number and large diameter, 19 or 20 millimetres, 2 hole fixing in the fisheye style and often quite thick. These are the real attraction for me in these cardigans and the ones illustrated below capture that period and look exquisitely.

I can imagine a cardigan fancier of the time spotting a fellow cardigan guy across a room at a crowded, noisy party. Trying to look discreetly butch (this was the sixties) he would advance stealthily through the dancing throng, moving his arms and shoulders in time to the music. His imagination taking flight at the possibility of a night of mutual cardigan fun ahead, he nonchalantly approaches his quarry. As the two figures converge the partygoers hear a loud crackle and see a blue flash as the two men evaporate in a million volt discharge of static electricity, leaving only feint cardigan shaped stains on the ceiling. Jumping jack flash by the Rolling Stones crackles slightly but continues to play on the Dansette record player in the corner.

Perhaps this is why one sees so few on EBay.

These two have been pinned to give them some semblance of shape.

These posts are enough to get going, I'll post once a week from now on.