CARDIGAN HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Source : Poshmark 

Cardigans are typically open-fronted, have buttons, and are knitted or woven; tied garments are referred to as garments. Cardigans are knit garments with zippers. A current fashion trend involves a garment that lacks buttons or zippers and hangs open by design.

The cardigan as we know it today is based on a fur or braid-trimmed waistcoat  of knitted worsted wool worn by British Army Officers during the Crimean war (some sources say ‘purported to have been worn by’, or that it was only worn by Cardigan himself)). The cardigan was named after James Brudenell (1797-1868), a British Army major general who led  the Charge of the Light Brigade during the Crimean War at the Battle of Balaclava. The legend of the event, as well as Lord Cardigan's fame after the war, contributed to the rise in popularity of the garment - Brudenell allegedly invented the cardigan after noticing that the tails of his coat had been accidentally burned off in a fireplace.

The original 'cardigan' was a sleeveless vest or waistcoat, but by 1864, the modern sleeved version, known as a 'cardigan jacket,' had appeared. Cardigan jackets were still specified in 1900, but by the 1910s, cardigan vests were less common than the sleeved version. By the mid-late 1920s, when knit garments had become firmly established in both men's and women's wardrobes, the sleeved version was so ubiquitous that a 'cardigan' without sleeves had to be specifically described as such, and was described as 'new'.

Source : Vintage Knit Crochet Pattern Shop

Early cardigans were worn primarily as working-class clothing, particularly by sailors and others who needed to stay warm while maintaining full range of motion. Their association with sailors at a time when nautical attire was entering mainstream fashion may have contributed to their acceptance by a broader range of society in the 1870s and 1880s. Originally a men's garment, cardigans made their way into women's wear in the late 1880s and were widely sold by the 1890s. Early women's cardigans, with full sleeves and nipped waists, resembled men's cardigans of the same era.

A cardigan for golf, Ladies Home Journal, August, 1912

Early cardigans were hand-knitted and were almost exclusively worn for bicycling, golf, tennis, and other athletics. As women began to live more active lives and participate in more sports, these knit garments became more visible and acceptable in a wider range of settings. Knitwear as a whole received a boost in the 1880s when new knitting machine developments made machine-knitting garments that could fit and cover the torso, rather than just the legs, economically viable. These machines were primarily used for knit undergarments (including the forerunner to the modern T-shirt) and knit pullovers like the sweater (first mentioned in 1882 as a garment for rowing).

The demand for patterns and instructions increased as the desire for knit garments grew, due to both an increase in participation in leisure athletics and the increasingly casual and practical nature of people's wardrobes. Knitting patterns and handbooks (such as this 1912 book and this 1918 book) were widely available by the 1910s. Department stores also sold machine-knitted garments, such as this pastel cardigan by Harrods, which features a variety of colors and techniques that a home knitter would find it difficult to achieve. Chanel is often credited with introducing cardigans, jerseys and other knitwear  as fashionable wear, with Fashion recounting  that ‘Coco Chanel famously donned a long jersey sweater on the Normandy beach as early as 1913’, but she was merely reproducing what was already a very widespread trend.  New Zealand photographs of the 1910s show women in all walks of life, from society hostesses to roller-skating teenagers, sporting jerseys and cardigans from 1910 onwards, both in informal and studio portraits.  Their inclusion in studio portraits (including one of upper-class social climber  Annie Beauchamp (mother to Katherine Mansfield), ca 1912) is important, because it demonstrates that cardigans and other knitwear had moved from the realm of pure sportswear into acceptable everyday fashions.