“Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.”
Maya Angelou
Nature has drawn boundaries on the skin of earth; rivers, seas and mountains, they have naturally separated us for millennia, until our main biological imperative prompted us to relate to others and invent means of transport, means of communication for travelling and crossing borders.
Now the borders are no longer the natural ones but the walls of our own houses, however our desire to interact, to contaminate ourselves with others, will push us to find new tools, new techniques to overcome even this moment.
Knitwear is important now, it makes us feel wrapped up and protected.
Locked in our apartments or guests of our grandparents’ country houses, we have time to rummage through the trunks and find old sweaters from the 50’s and 60’s, and our forgotten favorite school sweater from the 80’s and 90’s. So now vintage designer garments pop up during our conference calls as oversized Shetland wool pullovers, great-grandmothers hand-embroidered sweaters and thick ribbed wool socks to wear with klompen, the topical Dutch wooden sandal (obviously remade in recyclable rubber).
The knitwear is a continuous rediscovery, handmade stitches, three-dimensional braids and folk embroideries alternate with vintage jacquards, felted effects and needled techniques. Boy friend cardigan for the day and shiny recycled polyamide sweaters the evening calls at aperitive time.
Everything that technology still fails to reproduce, even with the most innovative machines, is back in fashion. Then the gage of the yarns grows, full-bodied yarns, raw and natural to the touch. Chunky yarns to handknit. Gage 3 and gage 5 are the most used machines.
The real contemporary innovation, however, lies in the drop-needle stitch knitting with thick but light yarns, so that these oversized pullovers are not heavy but soft clouds of colour. Recycled polyamides comfort us by making our virtual shopping more ethical and sustainable.
For the more creative, colourful, floral or even ethnic embroidery. Embroideries with cold and bright colours on warm and reassuring bases. The contrasts between vintage colours and urban and modern colours takes on a new importance. The jacquards are multicoloured, placed on the shoulders and on the yoke. Raglan sleeves are comfortable and allow you to give continuity to the rounded designs.
Crater necks and cubs are the most modern shapes made in ancient colours such as mustard, deep purple, olive and red ocher, together with wool and oak wood colours.
There is also a return to the 90’s with inlays with geometric shapes and bright colours perfectly made by cut yarns of shiny fibers.
Words by Italian Style Lab
Ph. by Elisabetta Scarpini
“The past shines in the enveloping shapes of knitwear”
A. Dini