Kay Gardiner may have said it best in her tweet yesterday: “Brooklyn Tweed Men has it all: facial hair, glasses, sincerity, abandoned warehouse AND FAB KNITWEAR.” In his intro to the lookbook, Jared Flood remembers being a new knitter, once upon a time, wishing for more good patterns. Of course, that’s not a problem exclusive to men (or people wanting to knit for men). Women clearly have far more patterns to choose from, but perhaps that just means more chaff to thresh through in search of the wheat.
Regardless, this collection is good news for all of us, being chock full of designs I would describe as more classic/androgynous than exclusively dudewear. The hats and scarves are all perfectly unisex. The striped turtleneck, Chesterfield, includes a girlfriend version. The exquisite shawl collar cardigan, Timberline, already has a counterpart in Michele Wang’s Exeter. And I suspect many women will be modifying some of the others for themselves, which is a nice change of pace from mod’ing women’s patterns to work for men, right?
My two very favorites are Jared Flood’s Fort (top left) and Julie Hoover’s Redford (middle left). But then, they resonate with me because they look so much like sketches in my own sketchbook! (Particularly those side panels on Redford.) Which is both freakish and not at all surprising, military wear and sweatshirts being mainstays of my wardrobe. Maybe everything I’ve said about the androgyny of the collection should be taken with a grain of salt, come to think of it. As I type this, I’m wearing camo pants and a heather-grey men’s cardigan (albeit with black ballet flats and a ponytail), so my notions of gendered clothing might not be the norm.
Anyway!, my favorites:
TOP LEFT: Fort by Jared Flood, beautiful texture plus elbow patches!
TOP RIGHT: Quay by Jared Flood, my new favorite scarf I don’t own yet
MIDDLE LEFT: Redford by Julie Hoover, with classic sweatshirt detailing
MIDDLE RIGHT: Brig by Veronik Avery, love that mitered ribbing
BOTTOM LEFT: Hayes by Julie Hoover, irresistible striped ribbing
BOTTOM RIGHT: Timberline by Jared Flood, would slide right into any Billy Reid collection
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Can. Not. Let. Hubby. See. This.
At least until that darn Chicane is done. Could I love Jared Flood and Brooklyn Tweed any more than I do? Nope, I LOVE everything here. Thank you for sharing this Karen.
I’m with Sarah. He’ll be bitching and moaning about how I take so long to knit. Although…if I start soon it could be done and under the Christmas tree….
Shhhh. He’ll never know… ;-)
I instantly fell in love with Redford when I saw the look book ~ I’ll definitely be casting this one on for hubby.
I love his collections.. I, always love to wear men’s sweaters. There is something deeply comforting about wearing a man’s sweater :-)