So it’s officially fall — equinox or no equinox. The first NFL game has been played. The new iPhone has been announced. Annnnd let’s see … what else? Right, Brooklyn Tweed’s Fall 13 pattern collection has been unveiled. You may have seen the lookbook yesterday. It’s 106 pages of cables and camping, so you know I’m in, but for me it’s all about these two sweaters:
ON TOP is Oshima by Jared Flood. (I literally just paused and let out a big meaningful sigh after typing that! Hilarious.) Brioche-yoked and cowl-necked, it’s one of the very few cable-free pieces in the collection and it’s just stunning. I can’t resist describing that top right photo as “Helmut Lang takes a hike.” That back shoulder detail just kills me.
ON BOTTOM is Stonecutter by Michele Wang. Nevermind a little pause-and-sigh, I wish you could have heard the sound that came out of me when I first laid eyes on these photos. This is not a word I throw around lightly (unlike, say, “obsession”) but I have no qualms about calling this a masterpiece. The hip detail, the magnificent center cables, the little rolled neck. It’s perfection from start to finish.
The thing about a design as perfect as that is it sends me into a little existential knitting crisis, as there is absolutely nowhere for me to insert myself into it. I wouldn’t even change the color, much less modify it in any way. I would want to knit it exactly as written, and in that case I can’t help wishing someone would just sell it to me. But I both admire and want it so much I may knit it anyway, and when someone says to me, “Wow, did you knit that sweater you’re wearing?,” I’d have the immense pleasure of saying, “Yes.” I had nothing else on earth to do with its existence, but every twist and turn of every cable, yes, I did knit it myself.
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