Comme des Garçons Cutout Sweater

In 1982 Rei Kawakubo showed a black hand-knitted wool jumper with holes placed at random through the body of it. The Victoria and Albert Museum holds one, describes it as knitted in stocking stitch with the holes placed to create a slashed effect, and the Paris press of the day read it as damage. Kawakubo’s own account was that they were not tears but openings, which gave the cloth another dimension. Four decades later that reading is so thoroughly won that a sweater with holes in it needs no defense at all, which is the usual fate of work that turns out to be right early. This one is the orderly descendant of that idea. The openings are large and square rather than random, so instead of looking like an accident they look like a decision about where the knit stops, and the cut is oversized, which gives the squares room to sit as shapes rather than as gaps that a shoulder is stretching. Cream rather than black is the other significant choice: on a pale ground the openings read as the darker element, so what you wear underneath becomes part of the sweater rather than something showing through it.

Why we selected it

We wanted one knit that would still be interesting on the tenth wearing, and a sweater whose whole design is what is missing from it is about as durable an idea as we have found.

This is the main line at its most historically legible: a garment doing in cream and in squares what Comme des Garçons first did in black and at random.

Materials and construction

One hundred percent wool. Made in Japan. Oversized cut, with large square cutouts. Color: cream.

Fit notes

Cut oversized, so it sits well away from the body through the chest and the shoulder and drops the armhole low. That is what the openings need in order to hold their shape, and it also means the sweater goes over a shirt without either garment complaining. Wool has recovery, so it will come back from a day of being worn; the cutouts will not stretch out if it is folded rather than hung.

Styling

Over the Ruffle Top, where a white shirt shows through the squares and finishes the pattern. Over the Nylon Balloon Trousers for wool against a hard synthetic. With the Ruffle Skirt for the all-wool version.

Care

Wool with structural openings in it should be washed as little as possible and never in a machine, because agitation is what turns an open knit into a felted one and a cut edge into a matted one. Wash by hand and cool if you must, press the water out between towels, and dry flat. Fold it, never hang it, or the openings will carry the weight of the whole sweater. Our care guidance covers wool in more detail.

Related pieces

Everything we carry from Comme des Garçons is listed together.