Schiaparelli Bow Knot Sweater, with variations.... The famous designer Elsa Schiaparelli designed a sweater back in the 1920s that may be one of the most iconic sweater designs in history. →[More:]Prior to the 1920s collars and cuffs were generally items that were separate from the garments they were worn with. Men pinned collars and cuffs on their shirts and women pinned collars and cuffs on to their blouses, sweaters, dresses etc. When Schiparelli designed a black sweater with an ivory bow and collar and cuffs knitted into the design, it was something completely original and witty and daring and all the rage. But then this was the designer who got other women to wear a shoe on their heads and think of it as a "smart hat".

I'd been wanting to knit one for myself for years. But I adapted the pattern considerably. I look terrible in black, and when I visited the yarn store and looked at all the colours available in the right weight, I ended up going with a burnt orange. This is less a leap than it might seem. It's possible to buy a kit to make the bow knot sweater in shocking pink, which was Schiaparelli's signature colour. I also didn't use the stranded technique to knit this sweater, but instead used intarsia, since the yarn I use has a tweedy texture that gave the sweater the speckled look of the stranded original. Then the sweater's twenties' style shaping wouldn't work on my figure (too long and too narrow), so I sized and shaped it the way I knit all my sweaters, with waist shaping and a slightly lower, more open neckline. I did use the chart, of course, and I think the result is still very recognizably a Schiaparelli Bow Knot sweater.... done Orange Swan style.