The story of the Irish sweater begins on the isles of the Aran archipelago, tiny strips of land that are battered by the wind. To protect fishermen against winds and tides alike, knitters sheared many a sheep to obtain a virgin wool with which they stitched 100,000 points to compose this hand-made sweater. A twisted knot section in the middle would evoke the fisherman’s rope as well as the trials and tribulations of the trade. And then in 1960, bombshell Marilyn Monroe turned the piece’s anonymity on its head the day she fell for it herself. It’s without a doubt the most noteworthy scene in the 1960 film “Let’s Make Love”, where the curvaceous Marilyn purrs out her rendition of “My Heart belongs to Daddy” before a spellbound Yves Montand. The blond beauty was decked out in a blueish twisted-knot sweater and a pair of tights – nothing else. When she took it off the set, the myth of the Irish sweater was born. Ample, worn like a dress but in a much, much shorter style, the Irish sweater is one of those pieces that knows how to hold its own.
And it works like a charm! The sweater definitely made the mark when Grace Kelly slipped it on to go fishing herself. Soon, fashionistas of the day would adopt it and, thirty years later, Gerard Darel acquired the original sweater at auction – the one that the actress wore in 1960. $56,000: that’s how much the original sweater worn by Marilyn Monroe went up for. About ten years later, Darel’s brand rereleased the piece with the dimensions of its original owner. This season, the Irish sweater is coming back more stylish than ever. An essential must-have, it’s today being reworked by Maison Martin Margiela in a light knit fabric, crewneck and gigot sleeves. The finished product is perfected by a never-before-seen knotting effect. A new surreptitiously elegant response to the eternal question of temperatures that are once more starting to flirt with zero.
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