22 THE CUT | MARCH 2–15, 2020
at some point in a woman’s journeyto either become, or avoid becom-
ing, her own mother, she realizes that the person who raised her might have
actually had good taste. For myself and a contingent of women I know whose
mothers lived in New York in the 1980s and ’90s, this happened the moment we first
tried on, and later stole for ourselves, our mothers’ agnès b. snap cardigans.
Created by the French fashion designer Agnès Troublé in 1979 (the “b.” was for Bour-
gois, her first husband), the snap cardigan is a uniquely French combination of bohe-
mian ease and bourgeois austerity, a Chanel jacket meets a Champion hoodie meets a
baby onesie. Agnès, who is now 78 and one of the richest self-made women in France,
calls it “a child’s garment for grown-ups.” Its origins were pragmatic. At the time, “I had
long, curly hair, so I thought it would be nice to not take [my sweatshirt] off over my
head,” Agnès (pronouncedan-yes) tells me. So she got out a pair of scissors, cut it up
the front, and voilà: her own update on the ’50s twinsets her mother and aunts used to
wear. “Right away, I sketched this very simple, square shape,” she says. She then added
roomy sleeves “to be able to raise your arms and kiss someone.” The 13 pearlescent snaps
were inspired by 18th-century jackets on statues around her hometown of Versailles.
Decades on, the snap cardigan, an ageless, timeless wardrobe staple from New York
to Tokyo to Paris, is having a comeback. The style, called “Le Classique,” is still sold in
a variety of colors and priced at $185, though it costs more in cashmere or leather. Sales
for “Le Classique” grew by 253 percent in 2019. “In the past year, we’ve started to have
a different type of clientele,” says the Soho store’s manager, Maggie Nathan. Young
people who “don’t know who agnès b. is” have found the brand.
Agnès has never advertised, but she understood influencers before anybody
hashtagged, rolling with everyone from Jean-Michel Basquiat to Harmony Korine.
In January, Chloë Sevigny announced her pregnancy on Instagram with a photo of
her stomach bulging out from a snap cardigan. (The photo was taken by director JimJarmusch for a 40th- anniversary exhibition on
the sweater.)
Made of a sturdy cotton fleece from Troyes,
France, these snap cardigans tend to get better
with age like a fine, machine-washable wine. So
you really want a vintage one. It has become a
pretentiously unpretentious micro status sym-
bol passed down from mothers and cool aunts—
either willingly or through a case of permanent
“borrowing.” It’s neither trendy nor particularly
flattering, but it signals something about you.
“I can’t explain why, but I tend to get along
with everyone who wears this cardigan,” says
Audrey Gelman, founder of The Wing.
You don’t need cool parents to be part of the
club. You can find vintage ones on eBay, Etsy,
and Poshmark; many come from Japan, with
40 agnès b. retail sites in Tokyo. Fashion de-
signer Mike Eckhaus found his first snap car-
digan at a thrift store in Hudson a few years ago.
He liked it so much that he designed his own
iterations for Eckhaus Latta, calling one with a
curved row of snaps “agnès b. on acid.”
“Now, I see people wearing it everywhere,” says
illustrator Joana Avillez, who inherited one from
her grandmother and owns about a dozen.
My own mother—who, not to brag, moved to
Soho in the early ’80s—bought her first black
snap cardigan at the Prince Street store simply
because it looked comfortable. Coincidentally,
her best friend also bought one. “Do they still
sell it?,” Mom asks when I tell her about this
article. After 25 years, she lost hers to a spill,
so I had to buy my own.
For my generation, the snap cardigan is an
anchor to an idea of the past, specifically a time
in New York when ordinary people, places, and
things were free from overwrought mythologies.
Most important, it’s not fashion. It’s genuine. As
a friend of a snap-cardigan-wearing friend, Ele-
na Tarchi, age 28, tells me, “I get fed Instagram
ads for every new brand on the planet, but all
I want is another snap cardigan.” ■ PHOTOGRAPH: © ÉTIENNE GEORGE/COLLECTION CHRISTOPHEL, COURTESY OF AGNÈS BI T ’ S V I N T A G EThe Legacy PieceHow the snap cardigan became the Chaneltweed jacket of New York.By Emilia PetrarcaCharlotte Gainsbourg
wearing a snap
cardigan with her
mother, Jane Birkin,
in the 1988 film
Kung-Fu Master.