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“Years ago, I designed a cardigan for myself. I wanted a cardigan with a lot of snaps, to look just like a Renaissance garment, a children’s garment for grown-ups, or the other way around."
the origins
Since its creation in 1979, the snap cardigan has never stopped changing. Whether a long cardigan or short bolero, in leather, with snaps around the neck, or as a long dress, agnès b. loves to transform her iconic creation. For women, men and children, the snap cardigan has been designed in many different colors, fabrics, and prints, including polka dots, florals, and stripes.
women's snap cardigans
men's snap cardigans
© David Lynch, 2019
some history...
“I was always wearing sweatshirts, and one day I thought that it would be really cool to open them, like the cardigans that I was buttoning on my way to school. I imagined all this snaps buttons very closed in order to have a garment like a Renaissance clothing, or a priest's robe. So that's the story of the snap cardigan. I've created a model for me in white, then in black, I've made some cardigans for babies and men, and now they are for everybody!”
cardigan evolutions
The original cardigan was made of cotton fleece, with a straight body, round neckline and two tabs at the back. Later offered to children and men, agnès b. didn't hesitate to give it regular metamorphoses: in leather rather than fleece, with short sleeves, strapless, fitted... It remains a unique and timeless garment. It has never ceased to be... The agnès b. cardigan in long or bolero versions, in black leather, with snaps at the neckline, as a long dress, with a high collar or simple neckline...
© Steven Silverstein, 1986
photographers and the snap cardigan
Jean-Baptiste Mondino, Steven Silverstein, Jeanloup Sieff, Dominique Issermann, William Klein, Sophie Calle, Steve Hiett and Gilles Bensimon were among the 64 photographers exhibited at galerie du jour in 1986. These photographs were shown again ten years later, in 1996, at the Centre Pompidou. Elle magazine called it a “consecration” for the agnès b. cardigan, which made its debut at the museum. Paris Match, meanwhile, was full of praise, calling it a “cult item”, “one of the emblems of Parisian chic”, which “shines in its simplicity”.
cardigan cut and material guide
