The Evolution of the Cardigan from Cricket Field to Boardroom
The cardigan takes its name from James Thomas Brudenell, 7th Earl of Cardigan, who led the catastrophic Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava in 1854. Whether Lord Cardigan actually wore the open-fronted knitted jacket that now bears his name during the charge is historically uncertain, but the association stuck, giving a humble garment an aristocratic pedigree it has leveraged ever since.
The cardigan's earliest documented use was as a military undergarment — a knitted waistcoat that British officers wore beneath their tunics for warmth during the Crimean War. Its open front, secured by buttons, allowed easy layering without the need to pull a garment over the head, a practical advantage in field conditions that translates directly to its modern utility.
Cricket adopted the cardigan as its designated warm-up garment, with cable-knit versions in cream becoming a standard part of cricket whites by the Edwardian era. The V-neck shape allowed the collar and tie to remain visible — a requirement in a sport where dress codes historically mirrored those of the gentlemen's club. This sporting association lent the cardigan an air of leisured refinement.
Hollywood transformed the cardigan's image through two contrasting archetypes: Cary Grant wearing slim cashmere cardigans that emphasised his physique in the 1940s and 1950s, and Kurt Cobain's oversized, moth-eaten Manhattans that defined grunge in the 1990s. The same garment could signify patrician elegance or countercultural disaffection depending on fit and context.
Italian knitwear houses — Brunello Cucinelli, Loro Piana, and Fedeli — elevated the cardigan to boardroom status by producing it in cashmere of extraordinary fineness. A Cucinelli shawl-collar cardigan (https://www.brunellocucinelli.com) in two-ply cashmere functions as a blazer substitute in creative industries, providing structure and warmth without the formality that contemporary workplaces increasingly resist.
The cardigan's current prominence in menswear reflects the broader casualisation of professional dress. Where a blazer once was required, a well-chosen cardigan now suffices — provided it fits correctly. The crucial measurement is shoulder seam placement: too wide and the cardigan reads sloppy, too narrow and it pulls across the chest.
From Crimean battlefields to Silicon Valley boardrooms, the cardigan has adapted to every context it has encountered. Its lesson is adaptability through simplicity: an open-fronted knitted jacket with buttons is so fundamental a concept that it resists obsolescence, absorbing the character of whatever environment adopts it while retaining its essential, unpretentious utility.
