To me the sexiest outfit for a man is a (preferably hand-knitted) woollen sweater and corduroy trousers. The most beautiful sweater of all is the gansey or guernsey, originally designed for fishermen.

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History

The Guernsey’s knitting industry  can be dated back to the late 15th century when a royal grant was obtained to import wool from England and re-export knitted goods to Normandy and Spain. 

The gansey came into being as a garment for fishermen who required  a warm, hard-wearing, yet comfortable item of clothing that would resist the sea spray. Using a tightly spun 5-ply worsted wool (popularly known as “Seamen’s Iron”) the intricately patterned gansey is knitted in one piece on five steel needles. The patterning to back and front and, in some cases, the upper part of the sleeve provides an extra layer of protection, while the combination of seamless construction, fine wool and tight knitting produced a garment that is both wind and waterproof. Indeed, every part of the garment is designed with practicality in mind.

The gansey came into being as a garment for fishermen who required  a warm, hard-wearing, yet comfortable item of clothing that would resist the sea spray. Using a tightly spun 5-ply worsted wool (popularly known as “Seamen’s Iron”) the intricately patterned gansey is knitted in one piece on five steel needles. The patterning to back and front and, in some cases, the upper part of the sleeve provides an extra layer of protection, while the combination of seamless construction, fine wool and tight knitting produced a garment that is both wind and waterproof. Indeed, every part of the garment is designed with practicality in mind.

The wool is knitted tightly so as to “turn water”; the lack of seams ensures greater strength and impermeability; the underarm gusset allows freedom of movement; the lower sleeves where most wear is sustained, are left plain so the worn part can be unravelled and re-knitted, while the patterning across the chest provides extra insulation. Note that the patterning is the same, back and front. This means that the gansey is reversible, so that areas which come in for heavier wear, such as the elbows, can be alternated. They were traditionally knitted by the fishermen’s wives and the pattern passed down from mother to daughter through the generations.

Through trade links established in the 17th century, the gansey found favour with seafarers around the British Isles, and many coastal communities developed their own “ganseys” based on the original pattern. Whilst the classic gansey pattern remained plain, the stitch patterns used became more complex the further north the garment spread, with the most complex evolving in the Scottish fishing villages. The knitting patterns were important to  be able to identify men after a ship had sunk…..

It’s arguable that the use and wearing of ganseys throughout the British Isles for over a century and a half almost justifies the gansey for qualification as a national costume.

Typical gansey worn by east coat Britain fishermen

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Two styles of Gansey exist: a plain “working” gansey and a “finer” example that was generally saved for special occasions and Sunday-best attire.  The “working” gansey design was kept simpler in order to reduce the amount of time and materials needed to produce. The sale of knitted garments to supplement family income was important to many island families and thus the garments that were sold were also of a simple design. It is estimated that a total of 84 hours was needed to complete a gansey: a simpler design could be produced faster than a more elaborate one.

The gansey that is still produced on the island retains much of the original design and patterns. The rib at the top of the sleeve is said to represent a sailing ship’s rope ladder in the rigging, the raised seam across the shoulder a rope, and the garter stitch panel waves breaking upon the beach. As a working garment, the gussets under the arm and at the neck are for ease of movement, as are the splits at the hem. Twenty-four principal patterns have been identified in Cornwall alone, each one again drawing inspiration from ropes, chains, waves, nets and sand-prints.

Dutch ganseys with different knitting patterns

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Worn as a source of pride and often knitted by prospective wives “to show the industrious nature of the woman he was about to marry”, the “finer” gansey was more elaborately patterned than its working cousin. 

The gansey’s tightly knitted fibres and its square shape, with a straight neck so that it could be reversed, make it a particularly hardy item of clothing. It is not uncommon for a gansey to last several decades and be passed down in families. Guernseys knitted for children were knitted to be “grown into” and often came down to the knee.

Shetland gansey

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Book

In the Netherlands all fishing-villages had their own knitting pattern for ganseys.

Gansey from Dutch village Katwijk

VISSERS TRUIEN

A Dutch book about ganseys with 60 knitting patterns 

To order for € 24,95 at :     http://www.forteuitgevers.nl/boek/visserstruien

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order

a traditional gansey, hand-knitted in one piece

http://www.flamboroughmanor.co.uk/flamboroughmarine/

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Louise Bourgeois, ph. Helmut Lang, 1997
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Very Short Biography

Louise Bourgeois is widely considered to have been one of the most influential artists of the 20th century. In a career spanning seventy years, she produced an intensely personal body of work that is as complex as it is diverse. Bourgeois created sculptures in a wide range of media: unique environments, or ‘cells’, in which she combined traditional marble and bronze sculptures alongside the everyday objects imbued with a strong emotional charge (furniture, clothes and empty bottles); prints and drawings; and hand-stitched works made of fabric.

Louise Bourgeois

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Born in Paris, Bourgeois originally studied mathematics and geometry at the Sorbonne but switched to art in 1932. She moved to New York in 1938 upon her marriage to the American art historian, Robert Goldwater. Although she continued her artistic practice in America, her career evolved slowly. The Museum of Modern Art’s retrospective of her work in 1982, when she was seventy, marked a turning point. In an interview that coincided with the opening, Bourgeois explained that the imagery in her work, which deals with themes such as jealousy, violence, sexual desire, betrayal, fear, anxiety and loneliness, was wholly autobiographical and a form of catharsis. In 2000, she made the first sculpture in what would become an iconic series of giant spiders entitled Maman. She continued to work obsessively up until her death in 2010, aged ninety-eight.

Louise Bourgeois was born in 1911 in Paris and died in 2010 in New York. Her work is widely exhibited on the international stage and continues to inspire a rich body of academic and critical commentary. The Museum of Modern Art in New York has established an online digital catalogue raisonné of the 35,000 prints and illustrated books that she produced during her lifetime.

Robert Mapplethorpe inspired by

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Comme Des Garçons inspired by

Louise Bourgeois

Louise Bourgeois

Louise Bourgeois

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Simone Rocha inspired by

Simone Rocha returning to a touchstone inspiration—Louise Bourgeois, on whom Rocha wrote her art college thesis—as she revisited and elaborated ideas developed in seasons past. Her new collection was as evocative and distinctive as the previous few, but more circumscribed in its innovations. Which is fine, by the way—a designer on a hot streak has the right to catch her breath.

The influence of Bourgeois was evident from the first few looks, padded velvet ensembles assembled from undulating forms. She was there, too, in the collection’s reliance on tapestry fabrics woven from chenille: As Rocha explained after her show, Bourgeois’ family actually owned a tapestry factory, and Rocha had recently seen a show of Bourgeois’ work utilizing the material. The tapestry looks here either played to the fabric’s stiffness, as in the various tailored looks, or fought it bitterly, wrapping the material around the body and/or forcing it into sculptural ruffles. Rocha described the process as “getting her body into the process,” an apt phrase given the muscularity of these looks. Elsewhere, Rocha took a new whack at the naked floral dresses she sent out for Spring, embroidering chenille yarn onto tulle to create William Morris-esque patterns.

Louise Bourgeois

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Louise Bourgeois’s Final Act

photographed by Alex van Gelder

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info: http://www.theeastonfoundation.org/biography

https://designandculturebyed.com/tag/louise-bourgeois/

http://www.vogue.com/fashion-shows/fall-2015-ready-to-wear/simone-rocha

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Louise Bourgeois’s Final Act, ph. Alex van Gelder