Fair Isle, Fair Game
My Christmas vibe is created from the following elixir: one cup Starbucks Peppermint Hot Chocolate, three tablespoons of a classic Claymation film, two parts idyllic mini-Christmas village, one Christmas Cookies Yankee Candle, the biggest civic lighting display you can find; Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters, Sufjan, and Charlie Brown Christmas music on shuffle; and last, but not least, one Fair Isle sweater. Of all the wonderful things listed above, only one item comes without a December 25th expiration date: the Fair Isle sweater.
Look everywhere from mannequins to commercials to Hallmark Christmas specials and you’ll find that Christmas 2011 comes wrapped in Fair Isle. Most holiday clothes are so over the top they border on being costumes. Fair Isle finds that fine balance between festive and fashionable. Plus, with its deep historical roots Fair Isle is the perfect pattern for a day and age obsessed with nostalgia.
The thread of Fair Isle knitting can be pulled all the way back to the 14th century on the style’s namesake island. A size XS (as in less than 6 sq miles) member of the Shetlands Islands, Fair Isle is a crumb on the map roughly halfway between Scotland and Norway. The distinctly patterned, multi-colored knitting technique churned for centuries; slowly developing and spreading. It wasn’t until an unofficial celebrity endorsement from the Prince of Wales who began sporting Fair Isle publicly in the early 1920s that the style truly spread to the masses. Fair Isle was then brought stateside after WWII as returning GI’s brought back the pattern that so charmed them in Europe.
Today Fair Isle has found itself a featured player in winter lines for everybody from Target to Ralph Lauren and whether you shop at Burberry or Old Navy, Fair Isle is a look that works for just about everyone too. Fair Isle is most classically staged underneath a Tweed blazer, but also looks dapper as a vest paired with a tie or peeking out from beneath a wool overcoat. A light blue Oxford is the go-to base layer for a Fair Isle sweater though for a more modern twist you might want to call on a denim or chambray button-down. You can also throw whatever jeans, slacks, or cords are in your closet at a Fair Isle outfit because each couples the pattern nicely.
Not only can Fair Isle work with so many other articles of clothing, it also fits with a wide chunk of the calendar despite its strong association with the holidays. Whether you go for a colorful Fair Isle shawl collar cardigan with a few reindeer knitted in for good measure this Christmas, a subtle blue Fair Isle crew neck sweater in spring, or a muted tan Fair Isle vest in early autumn, it’s a look that deserves fresh air throughout the year. This proliferation of one of my favorite patterns has me a little worried that Fair Isle will get played out like another of my former favorite patterns, Argyle; which went from classy to a parody of itself due to over-saturation. Still with more people wearing the style in more months I can’t help but believe the more Fair Isle the fairer.
Despite what big box stores may tell you, you can’t do Christmas till after Thanksgiving. Christmas in July is nothing more than a lame half-birthday party and anyone leaving their tree up throughout the winter months ends up looking a bit nutty. Yes, we’ve all got that one friend who’s on a Yuletide high year round, but that individual also licks their fingers after every meal and never misses an episode of The Big Bang Theory. When it comes down to it, you’ve got one month to fit in all the shopping, mistletoe, and looped Christmas albums you can because come December 26th, all those ornaments, caroling, and actual honest-to-goodness human kindness, consideration and decency towards one another go back into that mislabeled plastic tub in the basement. Well, all of it except for that lovely Fair Isle sweater.
