i found a cream fisherman sweater to fuel your 'normal people' winter fantasy

and it's made in ireland.

🕊️ Ceasefire Now in Gaza 🕊️

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The only way for me to get through winter is to romanticize it. I want to live in a ‘Normal People’ winter. Brooding by the beaches and bluffs. Late-night parties at Trinity in smoky rooms with smokier eyeliner. It’s a show I watch when I want to emotionally destroyed. Sally Rooney has also been on my mind lately because of her solidarity with Palestine within the literary world (she has turned down Israeli translations of her books and has called for a ceasefire among 600 other authors).

vivthemole

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I love Marianne’s sweaters in the show. She has a bunch of different looks to reflect her character development, but in her most intimate and vulnerable moments—she wears sweaters.

rust-colored cable knit number, one of her “happier” colors when she’s with connell in this scene

a solemn black sweater and tights, worn during her sad swedish study abroad era with that awful photographer boyfriend

marigold cable knit sweater worn over her holiday party dress

For the past few weeks, I’d been looking for a classic cream-colored fisherman sweater. As

Becky Malinsky

wrote in her Sunday post, it’s harder than you would think to find the right fisherman sweater. It’s a thicker/chunkier knit silhouette, and I wanted that balance between looking “bundled” but not “saddled” by the shape. And because I am on the shorter side at 5’2”, most of the secondhand men’s sweaters I looked at were too long. Plus—I wanted 100% natural fiber but not lambswool which is too scratchy for my eczema. All these things make it tricky to shop for.

There’s no shortage of retailers that make fisherman-style sweaters, but I actually came across this particular sweater through research on Irish history…it started with learning more about Ireland’s longstanding support for Palestine and extended into curiosity about their textile traditions. Because the fisherman sweater is such a quintessential Irish garment (also known as an Aran sweater), I preferred to purchase something made in Ireland over the buzzy it-girl knitwear brands of the moment like babaà or &Daughter.

So that led me to The Sweater. When I read it was 100% merino wool (much softer than lambswool) and under $100, I decided I’d buy it.

easy styling with jeans and mary janes

The best thing about this sweater is that while it’s not cropped, the ribbed hem is designed in such a way that it’s really easy to hike up and sort of “fold” under to create that tucked slouch over jeans. And the ribbed collar looks cute with a crewneck white tee peeking out.

It’s from a small Irish brand: