Kurt Cobain's thrift-shop cardigan is back on the market. I write about it in my new book, @WornOnThisDay. But when @RollingStone asked me to find out when it was originally made AND HOW MUCH IT COST, I didn't think I could do it.
@WornOnThisDay @RollingStone It's pretty generic--which is undoubtedly why it appealed to Cobain's anti-fashion grunge sensibilities. I knew the brand--Manhattan--but there were a few different knitwear companies with "Manhattan" in their name. Fortunately, the reporter was able to get a photo of the label.
@WornOnThisDay @RollingStone That narrowed it down to Manhattan Industries, founded in 1857 as the Manhattan Shirt Company. The company's label changed a few times over the years, but I wasn't able to find a black one one exactly like Cobain's in a museum collection, with or without a date.
@WornOnThisDay @RollingStone Museums tend to collect the unusual and the beautiful, not the everyday. But the label offered some even more useful information: the sweater contained mohair, Lycra Spandex, and Orlon. Orlon was trademarked in 1948; Spandex in 1962. Men's mohair had a moment in the early 60s.
@WornOnThisDay @RollingStone I found this ad in an August 1965 issue of Sports Illustrated (which has helpfully digitized its archive). A Manhattan "ski sweater" with the same fiber composition as Cobain's was priced at $14.95. Not quite the look Cobain was going for, is it? @SInow 
@WornOnThisDay @RollingStone @SInow A few months later, in November 1965, Sports Illustrated ran this ad for a cardigan. It's a different brand--Arrow--and a slightly different fiber content, but otherwise identical to Cobain's: a 5-button tan mohair cardigan with jetted pockets. @SInow
@WornOnThisDay @RollingStone @SInow But these were likely knockoffs of a wool and mohair style sold by New York Knitting Mills the previous year, which came in "gold" and other colors. This B. Altman ad from the August 1964 @nytimes notes that "shaggy" cardigans are "indispensable" and "a favorite on campus."
@WornOnThisDay @RollingStone @SInow @nytimes So I'm pretty confident that Cobain's sweater was made between 1962 and 1965, most likely in 1965. And, yes, it originally retailed for around $15, not the six figures it's expected to fetch at @JuliensAuctions this week. Sometimes the man makes the clothes. FIN.
P.S. Fashion magazines and ads indicate that the men’s mohair trend peaked in 1965 before trailing off sharply. It’s possible that the cardigan’s original owner didn’t wear it very much, which is why it survived long enough to find its way into a 1990s Seattle thrift shop.
The proliferation of man-made fibers and the rise of counterculture styles in the late ‘60’s doomed men’s mohair. I like to picture that original owner as a strapping, pipe-chomping midcentury golfer or frat boy—the anti-Cobain, if you will.
Like unraveling historical fashion yarns? Pre-order my book @WornOnThisDay today! Or buy it in stores November 5th. runningpress.com/titles/kimberl…
