By guest writer Sonia Menken
My name is Sonia and I am on the hunt for the perfect fall sweater. We are now inching into the winter months, which goes to show how dangerously long I have been obsessing over what kind of sweater will be right to invest in. I am willing to spend a decent chunk of money, and I want to be madly in love with it. I want that new-sweater-feeling to last longer than just the first few wears, and I want it to be an I’m-going-to-give-this-to-my-future-daughter-sweater. In order to achieve this goal, I turned to my friends, because as Picasso said, good artists borrow, and great artists steal.
As someone with two brothers, I’ve always been jealous of sisters that share clothes. Luckily, in college I met Willow, my greatest fashion confidante. Despite sharing lots of clothes, Willow and I have a strong mutual understanding of things that are off limits. For example, I would never ask to borrow her white Versace pants that were an absolute steal from the Rose Bowl Flea Market and she wouldn’t ask to borrow the handmade floral fall jacket that I wear nearly every other day. Maybe this is a language that only we speak, but it makes sense to us.
The point is that I already knew, without asking, that her favorite fall sweater this year is her Eckhaus Latta cardigan. Despite its steep retail price of $595, she got it for the beautiful and enchanting price of … free as a proud Eckhaus Latta employee this past summer. Although according to Willow, “there is really nothing wrong in spending a lot on a sweater. They are the best investment!” My other beloved friend and housemate, The Magnificent Georgia Gerber, agrees that sweaters are a good investment because “not only do they keep you warm but think about price per wear.” The famous Eckhaus Latta Sweater is brown with an underlayer of electric blue. The blue is knit into the brown, creating a heavenly mesh of color and not to mention, alpaca wool comfort. The zipper zips from the bottom and the top, which is a highlight for Willow because it “makes her feel like a superhero with a cape.”
Georgia as well appreciates the finer things when it comes to sweaters. Her absolute favorite right now, which totally persuaded me to peruse the website, is a cashmere black turtleneck from Toteme. It’s dreamy. It’s like the sweater version of a s’more, or a melted marshmallow, or whatever else you can think of that is warm and oozing with delight. It’s oversized, slouchy, “short enough in the arms but long at the bottom, and not itchy!” Comfort is clearly a high valued piece of criteria for Georgia, who discussed the importance of needing a long sleeve underneath a sweater. If one is needed, it’s not the perfect fall sweater. Georgia is classy. Georgia likes simple, chic. She has always been on the search for the perfect version of what she likes and it seems like the Toteme black turtleneck might have done the job. She split the price with her mom, and never looked back.
Eliza The Great, beloved housemate no. 3, has a favorite sweater from outside of this country (!!!). While traveling in Vienna during her semester abroad, she and her friend happened upon a thrift store. She felt uneasy about spending money due to a recent passport fiasco that caused her to empty her pockets more than she would’ve liked to, but it sounds like the sweater had that divine and holy element that I’m seeking. It’s big, gray, and has tinsel-like speckles, as if a textured yarn were sewn through it. It wasn’t cheap but she thought, “I’m here, so I should buy it.” The Vienna charm sold her.
Lastly, I turned to my boyfriend Trey, gorpcore extraordinaire, who I’ve actually never seen wear a sweater. I asked him out of sheer curiosity, and sure enough he told me about a fleece he wears skiing. “I don’t think that counts,” I told him, realizing a fleece is a gorped out mens sweater. I looked down and pointed to the thermal long sleeve he was wearing, which I’ve seen him wear countless times. Alas, I am side-tracked. On the hunt for the perfect sweater, I now need the perfect thermal long sleeve.
@sm3nken
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