The Week: The feminist history of the cardigan

Big, sloppy cardigans are as much of a winter time staple as salt on pavement or marshmallows in hot chocolate. But before they became an essential in cold-weather wardrobes, cardigans were a tool of rebellion for women. The cozy knits allowed women to take control of the public presentations of their bodies, and shake off dated gender ideals. When women changed how they looked, often a social change followed close behind.

In the early 20th century, women's fashion was undergoing a transformation. Restrictive, uncomfortable clothes came to symbolize equally restrictive social systems, and rejecting one was rejecting the other. And so, by the 1940s, students at Smith, Wellesley, and Vassar colleges had essentially stopped wearing girdles — that tight garment worn beneath the clothes to shape and slim the contours of the body — and started sporting cardigans.

These button-up sweaters became known as "Sloppy Joes." They were generously long and bagged over the hips, with long sleeves pushed up above the elbows. This look was inspired by the outfits worn by male Ivy League students, who took pride in looking a bit slipshod. The Daily Californian wrote that only the "most self-satisfied of men students" wore filthy cords, sloppy sweaters, and embraced general disorder. They were "proud of their neglect" and thought it showed a "superiority of mind over other men." It didn't take much time for the all-women's schools on the east coast to take on the same look.

"They began to wear Sloppy Joes around the same time they started to wear pants," Deirdre Clemente, a historian of 20th century American fashion, told The Week. "These young women were saying, 'we're not adhering to your concept of prescribed femininity, we're doing our own thing.'"

Read the full article on The Week.