Why Vintage Wool Sweaters are the Only Wool Sweaters You Should Buy

In 2010, I treated myself to my first new cashmere sweater from J. Crew. I think it was $100, which at the time felt like a huge splurge to me. I thought I was buying a real investment piece; one that I’d get a lot of mileage out of since it was a beautiful shade of burnt umber, which matched my entire wardrobe. However, to my dismay, within two weeks it started pilling like crazy on the inner sleeves and torso; within a month, it had developed holes in both elbows. I was both sad and furious—I felt like I had been scammed. How was it that my thrifted vintage sweaters that were nearly 50 years old still looked brand new and yet this “nice,” expensive sweater was total garbage in the span of a month? I started researching wool and cashmere production, and that’s when I learned that wool and cashmere production had changed drastically (for the worse) with the rise of fast-fashion, lowering the quality of our sweaters, blankets, scarves, hats, and other knits.

To understand this change, one must first understand how sweaters and yarn were made prior to the 2000s. The sweaters that our grandparents bought (and probably still have and wear and look perfect) were made from yarn that was spun from long-staple, fine fibers sheared from sheep and goats. These long-staple fibers, when spun, create durable yarn that doesn’t break or pill since the fibers are long and strong. However, fast-fashion can’t wait for sheep and goats to grow long hair; instead, these animals are sheared when their wool is short, resulting in yarn that breaks and pills. In regard to cashmere, the finest fibers come from the bellies and necks of Mongolian goats, each of which produce only a few ounces per year; in order to acquire more goat fiber, producers of fast-cashmere resort to shearing shorter belly hairs; not only that, they mix the belly hairs with coarse dorsal hairs (dorsal hairs aren’t traditionally used in fine cashmere) to create bulk. Since waiting for high-quality raw materials is bad for fast-fashion’s bottom line, speeding up this natural process helps a brand gain better market share, it unfortunately results in low-quality sweaters. Will buying a more expensive modern wool or cashmere sweater guarantee you a quality product? Unfortunately, no; most pricing is just branding, with unjustifiably high price tags doing little more than provide an illusion of luxury, leaving consumers frustrated when their luxury garment soon transforms into landfill fodder.

To make matters worse, some modern “wool” and “cashmere” sweaters are made from fibers that are blended with synthetics, which was not common to find in the US prior to the 2000s (it was common to find in sweaters manufactured in newly industrialized nations, like China). Most wool and cashmere sweaters pre-2000s were manufactured in developed nations and made *purely* of wool or cashmere, thanks to the Multifiber Arrangement, a trade agreement which ended in 2005 and had for 30 years restricted imports of textile products and yarn into the United States, Canada, and the European Union from developing countries. Once the restrictions were lifted from Western countries, many of them went in search of the cheapest materials possible, which they found in Asian and Latin American countries (where it was more common to blend organic textiles with synthetics) with few protections for garment workers or environmental regulations on the textile industry, which enabled them to slash wages and use more synthetics.

This trade globalization (as well as corporations desire to cut as many costs as possible) led to the widespread use of synthetics fibers, which is how “wool” sweaters warped into a blend of wool and synthetic fibers made of plastic (usually acrylic, polyester, or polyamide). This is also why most sweaters at fast-fashion outlets are 100% synthetic, with zero natural fiber content. 

The introduction of synthetic materials has created horrendous sweaters--they don’t hold their shape, they pill and shed, and they develop random holes. These sweaters also destroy the environment with their constant shedding of microplastic both when you wear them and when you wash them, not to mention  the fact that they don’t decompose in landfills thanks to their plastic fibers.

Not only is this bad for the environment, but it’s also bad for your health and wallet. Research has shown that PFAS (forever chemicals in plastics) are in our tap water and don’t get filtered out by municipal water plants (only reverse-osmosis filters or water distillation can do that); one of the many ways they end up there is when we wash synthetic clothing in our washing machines—the waste water carries these microplastics into our water system. Microplastics are also absorbed into the body through the skin when we wear synthetic fabrics.

Not only is our physical health negatively impacted by synthetic garments, but our financial health is negatively impacted as well, since the cost-per-wear is significantly higher on an “inexpensive” $50 or $100 sweater as opposed to a quality vintage piece. I’m going to surprise a lot of you here when I say this: YOUR SWEATERS SHOULDN’T BE PILLING! That is not a normal process for a high-quality garment! Unless you’ve had the joy of experiencing a vintage wool or cashmere sweater, you might assume all sweaters pill and are created equally terribly, hence there’s no point in investing. While a new cashmere or wool sweater at a store like J. Crew might cost $100, if it only lasts one month, that sweater costs $100 per month. A vintage sweater costing $200 could last you 50 years, which averages only $0.33 per month. And yes, I said 50 years. Many of my favorite sweaters are from the 50s, making them over 70 years old and they still look brand new, never having formed a single pill or hole. Speaking of investing, the price point of a modern sweater doesn’t guarantee its quality—first, look at the label and make sure it’s 100% wool or cashmere but more importantly, do your research on the brand and learn about their sourcing—where the wool is from, how the yarn is spun, how it’s knit, etc. If a modern brand isn’t being transparent about this, then their products are likely not great investments.

If that’s too much work for you, then stick to pre-2005 vintage 100% wool/cashmere and you’ll most likely have a lasting garment you’ll be able to enjoy for decades. One caveat here is that you’ll have to shop with reputable dealers or double-check the garment tags, as a lot of non-vintage garments are being sold as vintage both online and at physical stores. Everything at Dovetail is always vintage and our wool and cashmere sweaters are always high-quality so you’re safe here :)