Sweatering

By Scott Fraser, Founder of Scott's Sweaters | 35 Years of Sweater Design I've been designing men's sweaters for 35 years. Using mostly fibers such as angora, mohair, and alpaca, I've fitted everyone from everyday guys to primetime television celebrities — including one famous actress who told me she receives free sweaters from the world's most famous designers, yet still comes to me because she actually wants to wear what I make. In three and a half decades, I've heard nearly every sweater frustration a man can have. "I'm a big guy and sweaters make me look even larger." "They're too itchy." "I run hot — I'm always taking them off." These aren't minor complaints. They're the reason so many men have given up on sweaters entirely. That ends today. Here's what I've learned about choosing the right sweater for your body type, your lifestyle, and your life. First: Get Your Measurements Right (And Ignore the Label) Before we talk body types, let's talk about the single biggest mistake men make when buying sweaters: trusting the size label. Manufacturer sizing is wildly inconsistent. Different brands use completely different standards, and a "Large" in one label is a "Medium" in another. Never assume that because your favorite sweater is a size large, another brand's large will fit the same way. Here's what actually works. Take a sweater you already own that fits you well. Lay it flat and measure:   Armpit to armpit Mid-shoulder to bottom hem Sleeve length from shoulder edge to cuff Those three numbers tell you everything. When shopping — especially online — match those measurements to the garment's listed dimensions and you'll get a guaranteed fit every time. One more tip: if you see a sweater being modeled in an unusual or awkward pose in an advertisement, it's usually because the garment doesn't fit the model well. That's your cue to keep scrolling. For Larger Men: The Cardigan is Your Best Friend If you're a bigger guy who avoids sweaters because they make you look even larger, I understand — and I have good news. The key is the cardigan. Because the front opens, you can wear it casually unbuttoned, which drapes your frame rather than wrapping it. This creates a relaxed, cloaking effect that a pullover simply cannot. Pullovers draw the eye directly to your size; cardigans redirect it. A few more rules for larger men: Stick to solid colors. Plaid patterns, in particular, actively emphasize size. Avoid them entirely. Loose fitting is your friend. A sweater that hugs your frame will highlight it. Give yourself room. Watch out for pullover length. If you carry weight in your midsection, pullovers have a tendency to ride up at the waist, making them look too short. Cardigans eliminate this problem. Choose soft, fuzzy fibers like angora or mohair. Beyond the practical benefits, these fibers have a visual softness that actually affects how people perceive you. Larger men who wear angora or mohair cardigans tend to come across as more approachable and less imposing. It's a subtle but real effect I've observed over decades. Avoid cotton sweaters. Cotton deforms quickly to your shape and loses its structure fast. A quality natural wool fiber sweater should last a lifetime. A cheap cotton one won't survive a single winter looking good. For Smaller or Average-Framed Men: The World Is Your Oyster Smaller framed men have a genuine advantage when it comes to sweaters — almost any style works. But that freedom comes with its own set of choices. Mohair is a particularly striking choice for slimmer men. A fluffy mohair sweater makes a bold statement and signals a confident, individualistic sense of style. Men who wear it tend to be the kind of person who isn't dressing to blend in — they're dressing to be remembered. Plaids, stripes, and colorful Nordic yoke designs all work beautifully on smaller frames. These are patterns that would overwhelm a larger silhouette but add energy and personality to a slimmer one. One word of caution: alpaca. I love alpaca — it's a wonderful fiber, heavier and incredibly warm. But because of that weight, alpaca sweaters tend to droop and elongate. For smaller men, this can be unflattering. My advice: don't avoid alpaca entirely, but find somewhere you can try-on a few before you buy. For average-framed men, the options are even broader. A thin crewneck or V-neck sweater layered under a suit jacket or over a collared dress shirt and tie looks polished and professional. A striped sweater takes on a sporty, outdoorsy feel. Plaids read as relaxed and casual. The key is matching the sweater's personality to the occasion. The Itch Problem: What's Really Going On "Sweaters are too itchy" is one of the most common things I hear — and it's worth understanding why some sweaters itch before you can solve it. Natural fibers — wool, mohair, angora, alpaca — all have microscopic scales on their shafts. The coarser those scales and the wider the gaps between them, the itchier the fiber feels against skin. Standard wool is quite coarse. Merino wool (from specially bred sheep) is meaningfully softer, but it's still wool. Mohair is lighter than wool but retains heat almost as well. The tradeoff: both mohair and wool will itch if worn directly against bare skin. The solution is simple — layer them over a thick long-sleeved shirt. Worn over a flannel shirt, you'll never feel the itch, and you'll be extraordinarily warm. For those who want maximum warmth with little itch concern, consider Icelandic sweaters. They deliver the full warmth of wool without the heavy weight, come in stunning intricate hand-knit designs, and worn over a hoodie, they're among the most comfortable frigid-weather garments a man can own. As for angora — my personal specialty — it is among the softest fibers available. The softness comes at a price, but it also comes with something you can't fake: an unmistakable luminous luster that is immediately visible the moment you walk into a room. I have high-end sales professionals among my most loyal customers — jewelers, luxury car salesmen, entertainers — who wear angora precisely because people notice it. In their world, you display wealth to make wealth, and a fine angora sweater does that quietly but unmistakably. The Temperature Problem: Cardigans, Again If you move between cold outdoor temperatures and warm indoor offices throughout the day, pullovers are working against you. Peeling off a pullover in a meeting or a lobby is awkward. Putting it back on when you head outside is equally so. The answer, again, is the cardigan. Unbuttoning or unzipping a cardigan to let heat escape is effortless and discreet. It's the most practical solution to temperature regulation I know of, and it works regardless of your body type. Don't Buy Cheap Sweaters I'll be direct: a $50 "cashmere" sweater from a chain department store contains, at best, barely perceptible amounts of actual cashmere — and what's there comes from the reject fiber bin, used only so the manufacturer can print the word on the label. These sweaters will look tired after a single season. A quality natural fiber sweater — properly cared for — should last you a lifetime. The math actually favors investing in quality. One sweater at $300 that lasts 20 years costs you far less than replacing a $50 sweater every year. One Final Word: If You've Never Found the Perfect Sweater, Have One Made Years ago, I surveyed my customers with a simple question: When you walk into a crowded room wearing a very nice sweater, do you prefer to (A) blend in casually, (B) not be noticed more than anyone else, or (C) immediately stand out as discernably different from everyone else? Almost universally, they chose C. My customers aren't buying sweaters just for warmth. They're buying them for presence. If you've never found a sweater that felt truly right — a great fit, the nicest fiber, the right look — consider having one custom made. The options are genuinely limitless: fiber, color, pattern, fit, style, length. Everything. A knitter once told me something when I was just starting this business, and I've never forgotten it: "It's just knitting. We can make you whatever you want." That's still true. And it's where the perfect sweater has been waiting for you all along. Scott Fraser is the founder of Scott's Sweaters, a men's luxury knitwear brand specializing in angora, mohair, and alpaca designs. He has been designing sweaters for 35 years.

A Brief, Gloriously Fuzzy History of Men's Fuzzy Sweaters There's something almost primal about a fuzzy sweater. Warm, tactile, a little bit ridiculous — wearing one feels like being hugged by a very stylish sheep. Men have been reaching for soft, fluffy knitwear for longer than you might think, and the story of how fuzzy sweaters moved from practical necessity to punk provocation to runway staple is a genuinely great one. It Started With Staying Warm Before fuzzy sweaters were a fashion choice, they were a survival strategy. Fishermen and laborers in the British Isles wore thick, heavily textured wools — Aran, Shetland, Fair Isle — that were built to trap air and repel the elements. These weren't trying to be soft. They were trying to keep you alive in a North Sea gale. But the halo of natural wool fiber, the slight fuzziness of unprocessed knit, was there from the beginning. By the early 20th century, knitwear had moved from sportswear and workwear into leisure wear. Men wore sweaters on the golf course, on country walks, at universities. The fiber was still wool, but the intention had shifted — comfort and personality were now part of the picture. The 1950s & 60s: When Texture Got Fashionable The postwar decades were when fuzzy sweaters became genuinely stylish for men. Italian mills began producing mohair-blend knitwear with a distinctive luminous softness, and the look caught on fast. In Britain, the Mod scene adopted textured knitwear as part of its sharp-but-relaxed aesthetic. Turtlenecks and crewnecks in fluffy, light-catching fabrics became as much a part of the look as slim trousers and Chelsea boots. Meanwhile, in America, the Ivy League crowd was working through its own version — Fuzzy Shetland wool crewnecks dotted college campuses, often paired with chinos and quiet confidence. Different vibe, same basic love of a soft knit. Meanwhile, the hippy movement was in full-swing. Hippies loved the outdoors and usually had very little money. Alpaca sweaters, being naturally soft enough to be worn directly against the skin were also very cheap; both of which prompted the quick migration of alpaca sweaters to hippies. They could toss-on an alpaca sweater and instantly be already half-dressed.   The 1970s: Bigger, Bolder, Fuzzier If the '60s were somewhat refined, the '70s were exuberant. Sweaters got bigger, textures got wilder, and the fuzz levels went up considerably. Bouclé knits, shaggy textures, and novelty yarns showed up everywhere. Glam rock pushed men toward overtly soft, tactile fabrics — angora, mohair, fluffy blends — as a form of theatrical self-expression. Being touchable was the point. Brushed acrylic sweaters appeared on the scene, their synthetic fibers brushed until they frayed to mimic that soft mohair look, absent the high cost and required maintenance. These quickly became a schoolboy staple, adored by parents seeking to dress their kids for less money with garments that could just be tossed into the laundry with everything else. Problem was, they weren't very warm and the synthetic fibers quickly knotted and looked unkempt. Their luster could easily be restored with some stiff brushing, but neither parents - and certainly not their kids - were inclined toward that kind of maintenance.  The 1980s & 90s: Chaos, Then Quiet The '80s gave fuzzy sweaters a maximalist moment — oversized, brightly colored, sometimes deliberately unraveling. Punk had already established that a deliberately rough, fuzzy knit could be confrontational rather than cozy. New wave took that energy and made it glamorous. Then the '90s arrived and minimalism swept a lot of texture off the table. Grunge had its own relationship with knitwear — the distressed, thrifted, slightly disintegrating sweater — but overt fuzziness felt too cheerful for the decade's mood. Fuzzy sweaters didn't disappear, but they went quiet. The Revival: Fuzz Is Back, and It Means Business Since the mid-2010s, fuzzy sweaters have staged a full comeback in menswear, and this time they're not going anywhere. Teddy fleece, bouclé, shearling-trimmed knits, oversized mohair blends — texture is everywhere, and men are embracing it without apology. Designers from Bottega Veneta to smaller independent knitwear brands have made tactile, fluffy sweaters a cornerstone of contemporary menswear. Part of it is a broader cultural shift toward comfort. Part of it is a loosening of what "masculine dressing" is supposed to look like. And part of it is simply that fuzzy sweaters are great, and people eventually figure that out. The Bottom Line From North Sea fishermen to glam rock guitarists to today's fashion crowd, men and fuzzy sweaters have always found each other. The details change — the fiber, the silhouette, the cultural meaning — but the appeal is constant. Sometimes you just want to wear something soft. There's nothing complicated about that.

The Surprisingly Rebellious History of Men's Angora Sweaters Soft. Impossibly soft. The kind of soft that makes you question every other fabric you've ever worn. That's angora — and while it's spent much of its history being coded as feminine, men have been quietly (and sometimes very loudly) wearing it for decades. The story of angora in menswear is stranger, more subversive, and more interesting than you might expect. So, What Actually Is Angora? Angora fiber comes from the Angora rabbit — a breed so fluffy it looks like it was designed by someone who thought regular rabbits weren't ridiculous enough. The fiber is harvested by combing or shearing, and the result is one of the lightest, softest, and most insulating natural fibers on the planet. It's also notoriously delicate, which is part of why it's usually blended with wool or nylon to give it some backbone, so it can be knit without breaking. The rabbits themselves originated in Turkey (hence the name — Angora is the old name for Ankara), and the fiber trade spread through Europe in the 18th century, becoming particularly fashionable in France. The Early Days: A Luxury for Everyone In the 19th and early 20th centuries, angora was simply a luxury fiber — worn by whoever could afford it, gender be damned. Men's angora gloves, scarves, and knitted garments were very common. It was warm, lightweight, and had a beautiful soft halo that made any garment look expensive. Aristocratic men wore it with pride. It was really the mid-20th century that started to shift angora's associations toward womenswear — particularly as the fluffy pastel angora cardigan became a teen fashion staple for "sweater girls" during 1950s America. Men largely stepped back. But not everyone. The 1970s & 80s: Men Take It Back Glam rock changed the conversation. If David Bowie could wear a catsuit, men could wear angora. Soft, tactile, feminine-coded fabrics became tools of deliberate boundary-pushing. Angora sweaters appeared on musicians, artists, and anyone interested in dressing with a bit of theatrical flair. It wasn't mainstream — but it was visible, and that mattered. The 1980s pushed this further. New wave and avant-garde fashion embraced angora enthusiastically, and Japanese designers like Issey Miyake and Comme des Garçons were quietly dismantling the idea that any fiber belonged to any gender. An angora sweater on a man stopped being a fashion statement and started being just... a sweater. The 1990s: Underground but Alive Grunge killed a lot of things, but angora survived in the underground. Indie and alternative scenes kept it going — worn ironically, then sincerely, then both at once in the way that only the '90s could manage. Thrift stores became the primary source, which gave angora menswear a scrappy, found quality it hadn't had before. Today: Fully Rehabilitated The current fashion moment has been very good to angora. Gender-fluid dressing, the revival of craft and tactile fabrics, and a broad cultural appetite for softness (literal and otherwise) have brought angora back into menswear with confidence. Luxury brands offer angora blend sweaters without any particular fuss, and the vintage market for men's angora pieces is genuinely competitive. Today's angora sweaters for men typically use a blend ranging from 40-80% depending upon the style desired. Between 40-50% give other mixed fibers, often wool, a nice soft luster. Greater concentrations of angora give a more distinctive soft aurora effect, getting even fuzzier the more they're worn. Men's sweaters typically don't exceed 80% angora because the other fibers are needed to help the sweater keep its shape. Sweaters containing more than 80% angora are very plush and feminine looking sweaters for women often making a sexy fashion statement.  The fluffiest fiber in your wardrobe turns out to have one of the toughest histories. Not bad for a rabbit.

You've probably noticed that some sweaters feel like a warm hug, while others make you want to scratch your arms off within minutes. The secret is almost entirely about what the fiber looks like under a microscope — and it's surprisingly visual once you know what to look for. The Basic Idea: Tiny Fish Scales on Every Fiber Every animal fiber — wool, cashmere, alpaca, all of them — is covered in microscopic scales, like a fish or a pine cone. These scales are what make wool felt when you accidentally throw it in a hot wash (the scales lock together and never let go). But those same scales are also what makes some fibers feel scratchy against your skin. When a fiber pokes against you, its scales catch on your skin's nerve endings — and your brain registers that as irritation or itch. The flatter and smaller those scales, the softer the fiber feels. Simple as that. The other big factor is just the thickness of each fiber strand — thinner fibers bend easily when they touch your skin and don't poke back. Thicker ones are stiff enough to prod at you. The Fibers, From "Ouch" to "Oh Wow" Wool is the baseline. A regular wool sweater has relatively thick fibers with big, tall, prominent scales — like a pinecone with the flaps open. Fine Merino wool is much thinner (and genuinely soft), but your average wool sweater sits somewhere between "fine" and "feels like a hair shirt." The scratchiness is real and the science backs it up. Mohair (from Angora goats — confusingly different from Angora rabbits) has a different kind of appeal. Its scales are very flat and smooth, which means it doesn't scratch — but it also has a silky, almost slippery feel rather than a plush softness. Think shiny and drapey, like a glamorous 1970s sweater, rather than cozy and pillowy. Alpaca is where things get genuinely lovely. The fibers are finer than most wool, the scales are shallower, and — crucially — alpaca has no lanolin (the natural grease in wool that many people are actually allergic to, not the wool itself). So alpaca feels soft, doesn't itch, and is great for sensitive skin. It's also slightly hollow inside, making it lighter and warmer than you'd expect. Cashmere is the famous one. It comes from the soft undercoat of cashmere goats, and the fibers are extremely fine — about as thin as a fiber can be while still being practical to spin and weave. The scales lie almost flat against the fiber, barely protruding at all. The result is that when cashmere touches your skin, there's almost nothing there to catch or irritate. That's the "melts against you" feeling people pay a lot of money for. Angora (from fluffy Angora rabbits, not goats) is genuinely the most extreme example of all. The fibers are incredibly fine — finer than cashmere — and the scales have almost completely disappeared over centuries of selective breeding for fluffiness. The fibers are also partly hollow, so an Angora sweater feels almost weightless, with that distinctive soft halo of fuzz floating around it. It's less "warm and sturdy" and more "wearing a cloud." A Simple Way to Picture It Imagine dragging a pine cone across your arm versus dragging a smooth candle. That's roughly the difference between a scratchy wool fiber and a cashmere fiber — just happening thousands of times per square inch of fabric, at a scale too small to see. The softest fibers are the ones where nature (or centuries of careful breeding) has essentially sanded those scales down as flat as possible, on a strand as thin as possible. The rest is just physics.

The Wonderfully Fuzzy History of Men's Mohair Sweaters If you've ever run your hand across a mohair sweater and thought, "wow, that's incredibly soft" — congratulations, you've had the same reaction as basically every man who's worn one since the 1950s. Mohair has had one of the most interesting rides in menswear history: from luxury oddity to rock 'n' roll staple to high-fashion darling. Buckle up, it's a fluffy story. Where Does Mohair Even Come From? First things first: mohair comes from the Angora goat (not to be confused with Angora rabbit wool, which is a whole other fluffy situation). The fiber has been prized for centuries — the Ottoman Empire was so obsessed with it that Angora goat exports were literally banned for a time to protect their monopoly. By the 19th century, the trade had spread to South Africa and Texas, and the world's supply of gloriously shiny goat hair was secured. The 1950s: When Men Got Fuzzy Mohair really broke into mainstream menswear in the postwar era. In the 1950s, Italian mills started blending mohair into suiting fabrics and knitwear, giving garments that distinctive lustrous sheen. American and British men snapped it up. It felt luxurious without being fussy — the kind of thing you could wear to dinner and actually enjoy. But the real magic happened in Britain. The Mod scene of the early 1960s adopted mohair suits with almost religious devotion. Bands like The Who and The Kinks were photographed in sharp mohair two-pieces that caught the light just right under club strobes. It was the fabric of cool. The 1970s & 80s: Punk, Glam, and Getting Weird If the Mods made mohair sleek, punk made it chaotic. The late 1970s saw mohair sweaters deliberately unraveled, stretched, and safety-pinned into something confrontational. Vivienne Westwood sold intentionally holey mohair knits from her London shop — garments that looked like they'd survived something — and they flew off the shelves. Then came glam rock and new wave, and mohair went full theatrical. Oversized, brightly colored, worn with eyeliner — it was glamorous in the most wonderfully excessive way. The 1990s Slump (Yes, There Was One) Every great story has a low point. In the '90s, as minimalism and grunge took over, mohair felt too… much. Too shiny, too soft, too anything. It retreated quietly into the background, kept alive mostly by Italian luxury houses who refused to let it die. The Comeback (And It's a Good One) Mohair's revival has been building steadily since the 2010s. Designers like Missoni, Bottega Veneta, and a wave of indie knitwear brands rediscovered what everyone forgot: mohair is just genuinely great. It's lightweight, warm, and has that irreplaceable halo effect — that soft fuzz that catches light and makes a sweater look almost alive. Today, men's mohair sweaters sit comfortably across the style spectrum. You'll find them in sleek, fitted cuts for the minimalist crowd and in big, boxy, maximalist shapes for those who want to make a statement. Vintage mohair has become a serious thrift-store trophy. The Bottom Line Mohair has outlasted nearly every trend that's tried to replace it, and for good reason. It's tactile, it's warm, it photographs beautifully, and it has a history that touches on everything from Italian tailoring to British punk. If you don't own one yet, it might be time to fix that. Just maybe don't let the Angora goats know how much we need them. They'll get smug about it.

.. there are a surprising number of men nick-named "Pink." 

... You only get the GUCCI box if you purchase the items in the actual GUCCI store...