Today's topic - Cardigans

Today's topic is cardigans. I have been known to wear the occasional cardigan. In actual fact, I have been known to wear the same cardigan until it drops off my back in frazzled woolly remnants. This is something that drives my wife crazy. If I find a particular piece of clothing that I like, I like to wear it – all the time. Not quite to the extreme of my you nephew who wanted to wear his new turqoise Crocs to bed, but very nearly. Also, if you've bought something you like, well why not go back and buy half a dozen of them?

It's funny (I might mean, peculiar, or just odd) that people tend to read so much about people's personality from their knitwear. Polo neck? Psychopath. Anybody who can wear one of those things and not sweat, or wear one of those things and not care about sweating is in some fucked-up state mentally. Crew neck? Open, relaxed, a sailor maybe, for some reason I want to say alcholic. V-neck? Boring, boring, boring. Sorry what kind of insurance are you in? I just nodded off in my porridge.

Then there's the big-knit brightly coloured Playschool presenter, whole food and hessian underpants jumper. I have one of these and I don't think a T-shirt that had the phrase “You are a cunt, please hit me” would cause more trouble. It's very, very warm and you're supposed to think that it's authentic because it has strands of the hair of whatever woman wearing a bowler hat knitted it. Apparently the position of the bowler hat on a Bolivian or Peruvian woman's head can indicate her marital status and intentions. I wonder if one of the positions is “I'm knitting this jumper for revenge for all the wrongs done to my sex.” I once got heckled by a big issue seller while wearing this jumper.

You tend to not get such a strong read on people's personality from the kind of shirt or T-shirt that they're wearing. There are a few kinds of cardigans. I mean there's a kind of thick-knit big-buttoned kind that apparently is fashionable at the moment in London. And then sometimes I've notice gay guys wearing really thin ones with all the buttons done up. London's a bit weird when it comes to fashion. Even if you neither know nor care a single thing about fashion. You get to know what's fashionable really quickly. Because you get to see thousands and thousands of people every day.

For example, you might see some woman go past you in a beige cape – this happened to me a few weeks ago – and think “Wow, that lady must be quite fashion leader, I don't remember girls wearing capes since I was about 6 and going to Sunday school.” But then while you're standing there – this happens especially somewhere like Victoria or Kings Cross, another couple of dozen women walk past wearing slight variations of the same cape and they start to go down a little bit in your estimation because you realise that it's just a new fashion and all they're doing is wearing what's on the racks in Top Shop and in the pages of Grazia. I vividly remember the day that ponchos hit London in the mid nineties.

You see? I'm not totally oblivious to fashion. Although you wouldn't know it to look at me. I suppose part of the reason is that I don't look at men's fashions. Why not? Because where I grew up, looking at men resulting in you getting your head kicked in. Because if I'm in a crowded tube carriage with nothing to read, on the whole I'll look at the women for entertainment. I don't mean to brag, or crow, nothing like that. But I am very straight. Desperately, painfully so. Also, I think there's another reason that I don't check out well-dressed men. Because I actually believe that apart from homosexuals, who've got their own obvious reasons, well-dressed men tend to be cads, wife-beaters or estate agents.

Whenever I get the chance I wear pretty much exactly the same kind of fine-knit lambswool cardigan that I first wore when I was an undergraduate at university. Why? Well, it's very practical and comfortable, and for me, those really are the most important things about clothes. Practical? If it does get cold, you can button it up. If it's not so cold, you can leave it unbuttoned. Comfortable, because if you're a fat bloke like me, jumpers can be a bit tight across the chest (belly). Whereas a cardigan gives you room for manoeuvre. It also makes a statement, about as clearly as the polo neck and crew neck. It says “I'm no threat physically or sexually, but I might have read a book.” And I suppose in my case that's not crafty camouflage, it's just the painful truth.

In fact, its effect is so powerful, I wouldn't surprised if you went through a polo-neck wearers wardrobe you'd find a few blood stained cardigans hidden at the back. Maybe the reason is, that if they did wear a cardigan for a while, they wouldn't be so hot and sweaty, they'd feel a lot more relaxed, and wouldn't be so tempted to go out on a killing spree or to build the world most successful and least ethical electronics empire.

For some random job that I was doing a few years ago I was interviewing artists in their homes. One lady who made amazing glassware that I was interviewing had a day job working in a women's refuge. Quite legitimately, she was a bit worried about inviting a strange man come to her house and so we made rather elaborate arrangements to meet in a nearby pub. When I rang to confirm the appointment she said

“Is that your picture on your website?”

“Yes.”

“You're the one in the cardigan?”

“Yes.”

“Oh that's all right then – you can come straight to the house.”

Actually, writing about cardigans has made me resolved to buy more of them and wear them more often. I realise that they are the fashion equivalent of a white flag (but can you imagine what I'd look like in a beige cape? Or a poncho).

Posted via email from The Ginger Mumbly