Aran Sweater

The authentic Aran Sweater was offered in Fall 1984 Update in the British Isles catalogue. It was also offered in Holiday 1984. The hand-knitted sweater was a work of art that sold for $250 and came with a tag signed by the artist who knitted it.

The tag read: “In my own home on the Aran Islands I hand-knitted this garment. It is the hope of my heart that its wearing will give you all the pleasure its knitting gave me, for we are very proud here of the art craft that has come down from mother to daughter for centuries without count.”

From the 1984 catalogue: The Aran Isles, three obscure and barely arable juts of land on the outer edge of Galway Bay, are all but cut off from the rest of the world by frequent heavy seas. The islanders live in an unspoiled world of their own, cultivating the poor land and fishing a little. Yet the Aran Isles Sweater, knitted by women who’ve never even seen a skyscraper, has become on of the world’s classic garments. Its intricate patterns, so pleasing to the urban dweller, are drawn from the simple, very sheltered lives of these islanders. “Cables,” for instance, represent fishing ropes, “Moss Stitch” is drawn from the local mosses. “Marriage Lines” depicts the ups and downs of married life. The wool of the Aran sheep is thick and rich in lanolin against the dank climate. The patterns, knit one design over the other, are fashioned to trap air for extra warmth. And so the finished sweater is not only a work of art, but water-repellent, cozy as a cup of tea, and certain to last a lifetime–in fact, to become an heirloom. As the years pass, it will be a rarer and rarer treasure, for, as the Twentieth Century encroaches on the Aran Isles, the art form will become more and more severely endangered. Need we even mention that each sweater is one of a kind? (This is always the way with genuine hand-knitted garments. And each has a hang-tag signed by the artist.”

Courtesy Donald Oldacker collection