Fashion weeks rarely get excited about the sweater that does its job quietly. This season, though, the lightweight V-neck has earned the attention. At Tod’s in Milan it was layered over a crisp, contrasting button-down. At Sandy Liang in New York it was worn alone in a soft pastel. The retail round-up that accompanies the trend shows how far the silhouette stretches, from a Miu Miu wool cardigan and Falconeri’s cashmere to PVCS, Gap’s CashSoft and a JCPenney Marilyn Monroe pullover. It is a shape with a place at almost every level of the market.
For Indian knitwear, that is not news, because the V-neck has long been the safe choice in men’s and women’s sweaters. Monte Carlo shows it best. On Nykaa Fashion the label lists a men’s V-neck sleeveless sweater, a blue full-sleeve V-neck, a solid powder blue V-neck and, for women, a black full-sleeve V-neck cardigan. Another shows a striped black V-neck and a self-design maroon V-neck for men. The sleeveless versions deserve particular attention, since they deliver the Tod’s layering look without the bulk.
Others are working the shape from different angles. 98 Degree North offers a men’s merino wool blend V-neck pullover in maroon, which sits at the wool-led, serious-layering end of the category. Crimsoune Club gives it a style push with a brown colourblocked V-neck sweater for men. Among women’s labels, Globus has a maroon full-sleeve self-design V-neck cardigan, and Nykaa’s own label Twenty Dresses lists a navy solid V-neck cardigan with buttoned sleeves. Twenty Me stays in the same territory, with a brown acrylic sleeveless V-neck cardigan and a navy acrylic-blend full-sleeve V-neck. At the top of the sample, Amiya’s Nevia Cashmere V-Neck Sweater is the nearest Indian match to the cashmere pieces in the runway round-up.
What stands out in these listings is colour. The pieces I reviewed lean towards maroon, navy, brown and black, which is sensible winter dressing but a long way from Sandy Liang’s soft pastel. Indian shelves, in other words, read more like Tod’s than like New York. The runway’s lighter, solo take has few obvious counterparts in this sample. That is a gap, and a brand that fills it with a pastel V-neck, aimed at wearing alone, would be saying something the category is not saying now.
The retail case is stronger than the fashion case. A lightweight cotton or cotton-blend sweater layers easily and works through most of the Indian winter without feeling too warm, and it points out that a V-neck is ideal for layering over a crew-neck T-shirt in smart-casual dressing. That is a practical argument in a market that has had to rethink winter.
The runways have rediscovered a shape that Indian knitwear never abandoned. The trade question is whether the labels that own the category will treat the attention as a prompt to update it, with softer colour, lighter fabrics and a clearer point of view, or simply let the moment pass.
