Making my room cardigan freindly

Some considerable time back I decided to indulge myself in a fully cardigan-centric lifestyle. To this end I used an image, which has found its way round the web among the few aficionados of my particular fetish, to make a large poster out of multiple sheets of A4. I used a site called rasterbation. If they ever look at the images which pass through their site I can't imagine what they may have made of this one, they never came back to me despite having an email address to which they delivered the image as multiple PDFs. I fondly imagine they thought, "huh, another cardigan fetishist" and took little notice of it, much in the same way the thousands of visitors to this blog probably do (I don't use smilies, but you get my drift.).

Anyway, great image, practically life-size, on my wall to remind me what I know anyway. The real thrill is that my familiarity with it makes me forget it's there, with potentially hilarious consequences. Perhaps I'll reveal more in a later post.

Anyway, here's what it looks like, taken on a crap camera, so bad it seems unable properly to resolve a gentleman's enbonpoint.

You're going to tell me it's juvenile, aren't you? Well yes it is, but I like it.

Birthday

I well remember what I consider my cardigan birthday, I even remember the date. It was November 11th. 19--. I had been working for about three months in my first job and saw a nice white five button cardigan in a shop near where I worked. The shop was one of those independent menswear shops which are few and far between these days; it's now a kebab shop and has been for a long time.

I eyed up the cardigan in question over a few days, tempting myself each day as I passed the shop en route to the tube station as I made my way home. I had to pluck up the courage to go into the shop to buy it, as if it were some special under-the-counter item of dubious legality. To me, in a sense, it was; to the shop proprietor who eventually sold it to me without a second thought, it was a cardigan, nothing special.

I entered the shop trying to look nonchalant, despite being positively fizzing with excitement and asked for the cardigan that was on display in the window. It was duly produced and I was asked if I'd like to try it on. I declined, thinking the shop proprietor was about to say something along the lines of, "go on try it, we all know why you're buying it... we've got you trapped now, you will never know an end to this." Instead he just put it into a bag and took my money. I scurried out into the early evening air and breathed a sigh of relief before hurrying to the station to get home.

The journey took forever, and I kept feeling the package to see if I could feel the buttons. Disappointingly I couldn't, this meant that by the time I arrived home I was in a frenzy. I ran to my bedroom, took all my clothes off and put the cardigan on, my first cardigan! It felt absolutely right, just proper and correct, the very thing; it should always have been thus. And it has been since. I slept in it that night, something I’ve rarely done since.

That particular garment lasted for a few years, it soon had company at the bottom of the wardrobe. In the end it was damaged in the tumble dryer, too hot, but I still wore it. It was eventually thrown out in a purge, something I regret. I may well hold forth about purges at a later date, an interesting phenomenon and not unique to me or to cardigans.

My illustration for this entry is of a cardigan nothing like the one I’ve been talking about, except for the buttons. They are of exactly the same design as the ones on the proto-cardigan, they differ only in colour. So come November 11th., join me in celebrating my cardigan birthday.

Fred Perry

Among the earlier cardigans I bought was an original Fred Perry, this will have been in the early eighties.

A little history to begin, Fred Perry was an English tennis player in the thirties, did well at Wimbledon (may have won, I don't know, I never get the sport questions right) and then pissed off the tennis establishment by turning professional. He ended up in America reasonably wealthy having in the course of his career sold his name to a clothing label.

The Fred Perry cardigan was an acrylic creation with plastic faux leather buttons, six in number, made to look like footballs. They were available in plain finish or an argyle pattern. They had the trademark laurels on the left chest and to my eyes owed something to the style of American letter cardigans I discussed a while back. They were very popular at the time and I certainly thought they looked well sexy. They now command preposterously high prices on EBay. I have one of the plain ones, in a rather sorry state; it's been through the washing machine too many times. I am more than happy to be boastful and indiscreet and say that it is my, how to put this delicately, most "gigged" cardigan, if you get my meaning.

The label continues to this day and seems to have moved upmarket in price and now occupies a designer niche. The football style buttons are long gone and more upmarket fabrics are now the norm; fings certainly ain't wot they used to be. Times may have changed but the fond memories will, however, remain with me as detailed and vibrant as the day they were acquired (the rash cleared up after a few days, fortunately).

Here’s a nicely photographed one that sold on EBay some time ago.

The Y cardigan

Here's one from fable and legend, the Y cardigan. Popular in the early eighties and all but extinct by about 1987. I had one, I remember it well, I cut the sleeves off it (don't ask) and eventually gave it away to someone whose need for it I perceived to be greater than mine.

Let me describe the legendary Y cardigan. Made from a soft open weave acrylic, some were made in a waffle texture, they came in various colours. I had one in black, I seem to recall they had contrasting colour piping to the edges but this may be my cardigan clairvoyance misleading me. They had four plastic leather football-looking buttons and a large Y in a contrasting colour on the left hand side. This was not a patch but a pattern incorporated in the weave. Their kinship with American letter cardigans was apparent and the Y I think may have referred to Yale, though I think this was lost on us back then.

Their stylistic nod in the direction of the then Popular Fred Perry cardigans was obvious in their letter cardigan heritage and the football style buttons. What they had going for them over the Fred Perry is they were cheaper.

The fable and legend I refer to come from the fact that you don't see them anywhere now, not EBay, not retro fashion outlets, nowhere. This is very surprising considering their ubiquity at a time from which much other fashion survives, including some fine vintage cardigans. And here may lie the explanation; that word fine. Y cardigans were never expensive and were the sort of garment one might find on a market stall or at a discount clothing outlet. I think nobody hung on to them because nobody valued them.

Sadly, I can find no pictures of them, though there are several fond reminiscences of them on nostalgia message boards here and there on the web. Do get in touch if you find one, or even a picture of one. If you had the good fortune to have sex in one, please present yourself in person.