Project Title: The Cable Knit - Hand Knit Cables
Project Description:
This cable jumper is a deeply personal study in form, history, and sustainability. Drawing inspiration from traditional British countryside attire and the silhouettes of Victorian England, the piece reinterprets the practical garments of rural life through exaggerated proportions and hand-crafted detail. The oversized sleeves and towering turtleneck create an enveloping silhouette—both protective and expressive—while honoring the quiet resilience of the past.
Central to the piece is the principle of slow fashion. Every element has been created by hand, using time-intensive techniques that resist the pace of industrial production. The garment is knit from a natural wool blend—an ethical, renewable fiber that speaks to both environmental responsibility and physical warmth. The irregularities of the handwork are not flaws but features: they record the presence of the maker, the passage of time, and the labor embedded in every stitch.
Cable knitting has long been a functional and decorative language of British knitwear—once believed to carry symbolic meanings linked to family, identity, and geography. Here, those same motifs are re-scaled and recontextualized, forming a visual and textural terrain that is at once ancestral and modern. The jumper becomes a wearable landscape, carrying the weight of its heritage and the intent of its reinvention.
By merging traditional textile knowledge with contemporary values, this piece challenges the notion of fashion as fleeting. Instead, it proposes a garment as heirloom—something to be kept, cherished, and remembered. In its materiality and method, it stands for sustainability not just as a practice, but as a mindset: honoring slowness, respecting nature, and returning to the meaningful rituals of making by hand.
Date: December 2024
Medium: Wool Blend
Class: Hand knitting 1 (Final Project - Grade 100%)
