I look at this sweater as something that he put on every day. “He was obviously in a bad way at the time. “I look at that sweater from a different perspective than maybe some people do,” Kletjian says. This was really kind of the security blanket of a sweater.”Ĭobain wore the sweater for months preceding his 1994 suicide, on the now-legendary Unplugged performance in November 1993 and several times on tour before his death in April. You wanted to be wrapped in something that was warm and cuddly. “Of course, it was all part of the grunge aesthetic - that you didn’t want anything too new or too pretty. And, of course, this being Seattle, it was cold, it was rainy. “It was part of a much larger trend in Seattle in the early Nineties, where people were buying vintage, recycling clothes, and creating clothes from found objects,” she says. God, I don’t want to wear this.’”Ĭobain was a frequent thrift shopper and likely purchased the sweater at a second-hand shop, according to Chrisman-Campbell. “It’s like when they say you should walk in somebody else’s shoes. “It’s kind of a weird, powerful thing when you do something like that, when we put on somebody else’s ,” he said. “The stains are still there.” Kletjian confirms that he’s kept the sweater in mint-grunge condition he put it on only once, but took it off after less than 40 seconds. “It’s very important that we don’t wash it,” Darren Julien of Julien’s Auctions told Rolling Stone earlier this month. The cardigan is now worth more than 8,000 times its approximate original price - despite (or, rather, because of) the funk. However, Chrisman-Campbell located a Manhattan brand ad from the early Sixties in which a similar sweater cost $15.95. Perry Ellis no longer employs anyone who worked at Manhattan Industries during that era, so Medici can’t confirm which line the piece came from. Kind of that off-green, that olive green color that was popular for home décor in the Sixties.” As the label’s SVP of Marketing & Corporate Communications, it is possible she’s biased, although Chrisman-Campbell confirms, “It’s a very classic style. “It was an innovative, iconic American brand,” says Lorraine Medici. The cardigan’s label - a sporty affair featuring a boat and a skier - comes from Manhattan Industries, a garment company that was established in New Jersey in the mid-1800s and acquired by what is now known as Perry Ellis International in the Eighties. According to fashion historian Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell, the acrylic, mohair and Lycra blend cardigan was likely made between 1960 and ’65, when silky mohair was a popular material for menswear. When the sweater arrived at Kletjian’s house via overnight mail, he says, “I opened it up and it immediately hits me: ‘Oh, now I’m also going to be responsible for this.’ It was kind of like when my children were born years ago I was so happy to see them, but then I was like, ‘Oh no…’ ”Ĭobain’s sweater came into being just before the Nirvana frontman’s own 1967 birth. Garrett Kletjian, the owner of professional race car team Forty7 Motorsports, is the current self-described “custodian” of the garment he purchased it at Julien’s Auctions in November 2015. The story of where it came from and what happened to it is more than a half-century long. But more than 25 years ago, it was wrapped around Kurt Cobain during Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged performance. The cardigan’s not studded with diamonds or knit by a couture atelier. Still, the last time it sold, it fetched a whopping $137,500. It smells like a grandmother’s musty attic. There’s a missing button and two cigarette burns. It has a mysterious stain in one of its pockets - “some kind of brown, crunchy something in there,” according to the sweater’s owner, which he guesses could be chocolate, or vomit. The world’s most expensive cardigan is locked in a gun safe in rural Pennsylvania.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |