Great Sweaters Report

Plus Concorde turns 1 and launches the "Cute Swag" index

Welcome to Concorde, a bimonthly edition of the sletter where Erin takes the lead. You could call it a women’s vertical, but the insights, intel and “cute swag information” transcend gender. The full archive lives here.

The B.L.I.S.S. List — our comprehensive guide to Beautiful Life-Improving Spyplane Staples — is here.

Peep our list of the world’s 35 slappiest shops, where Spyfriends have added a ton of gems in the comments.

— Erin & Jonah

Spy Nation — wow. One year ago, the first-ever Concorde swept down the “recon tarmac” and took off with such speed and finesse that, mere days afterward, both The New York Times and The Guardian profiled us. We didn’t have a flight plan — we just knew we wanted to be smart, fun and extremely good-looking. Well, mission accomplished, lovers! 😮‍💨

Today we’re celebrating Concorde’s 1-year anniversary by unveiling the Concorde “Cute Swag” Index — a comprehensive guide to EVERY COOL THING I (Erin) have written about over this past year, helpfully arranged by category.

That’s right, you’ll find every jawnsmaker we’ve covered, every vintage search term we’ve shared, every book I’ve recommended, and all the Mach 3+ vintage resellers I’ve shouted out.

What else have we done this year? We’ve tracked the history of the rollneck sweater, broken down how to wear scarves of every size, forecast incoming color trends with bone-chilling accuracy, and covered small makers of ingenious knits, jeans, jewelry, tights, tees, bags and shoes. We’ve demystified the secrets to swaggy layering and answered reader questions about watches, plus-size fashion, and what to wear to weddings. D*mn!!

Also? We’ve published landmark reports on what’s popping with Shorts and Sneakers. In that vein, in today’s sletter I’m doing a Special Concorde Deep Dive Report on Sweaters — featuring my current favorites for fall, including some handmade one-of-ones and vintage finds.

Let’s get to it!

Every morning for the past few weeks, I’ve woken up to find enormous spider webs strung across the plants and trees out back at Spyplane HQ, dripping with dewy pearls as they soar, stretch and ladder through the air.

I did my googles to ID the arachnids responsible. Turns out I was admiring the work of Orb Weavers, who reach maturity in the fall and spin their webs during the longer nights in October and November. As shown in these illustrations from an 1889 book devoted to the genus¹, that extra spinning time lets them go DUMMY HARD with their technique…

Images from an 1889 book titled “American spiders and their spinningwork” that Ellcock found on the Internet Archive here

Looking at the zigzags made by the Argiope species of orb-weaver (bottom right above) led me to some stonerish thoughts: Is it a coincidence that, at the same time of year that Northern Hemispheric Spyfriends begin to reach for sweaters, garden spiders start feverishly knitting their own masterpieces? Because, when you think about it, aren’t sweaters webs for the body??

Let’s get to the Concorde Slapper Sweater Report: