Our designer and founder, Dan Snyder, is featured in the Wall Street Journal article titled: Crochet Clothes: Not Just for Grannies Anymore, about knitwear and the rise of crochet. Read the article below to find out more.
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As a child in rural Virginia, Ray Prunty would watch his aunts and grandmother craft comely crochet throws to pass the time. Today, the 23-year-old sales assistant in Richmond, Va., proudly plops a hat crocheted in a grid of “granny squares” by Philadelphia’s Stahl Knit on his head several times a week. Mr. Prunty, who said he “grew up on crochet,” was attracted to the cap’s prismatic color scheme and its cozy nostalgia value.
Stahl Knit is one of a number of small-scale labels—some with just one employee— producing colorful, handmade clothing using crochet, a traditional hook-needle crafting technique. These designs include a fluffy sweater pieced together from large red, purple and aqua granny squares by California’s Chamula; a delicate, almost lace-like crochet tank top from New York’s Bode; and a sprawling handmade scarf dotted with on-the-nose peace signs from England’s Story MFG. Some larger fashion brands also produce pieces that appear hand-crocheted but are machine-made.
Earlier this year, Brett Hymes, 29, a writer in Santa Clarita, Calif., purchased an oatmeal- colored granny-square cardigan from New York’s Corridor that was handmade in Peru. The sweater has a pleasing “grandpa vibe” to it, said Mr. Hymes. Indeed, crochet epitomizes down-home comfort. The tightknit sitcom family on “Roseanne” (which premiered in 1988 and ran for 10 seasons) kept a crocheted throw draped across its plaid couch throughout the show’s run.
Crochet also conjures the ’60s, when young people traipsed around in shawls and tops fabricated from multicolored yarns. Corridor’s cardigans were, in fact, inspired by an image of a shaggy-haired Paul McCartney wearing a bluish crochet vest on the set of “The Magical Mystery Tour,” the Beatles’ 1967 British television movie. “There’s all sorts of flower-power stuff happening now,” said Dan Snyder, Corridor’s owner, noting that his sweaters slot into a larger throwback moment.
“There’s all sorts of
flower-power stuff
happening now,”
- Dan Snyder
Although this summer didn’t end up being a repeat of the freewheeling summers in late- 1960s America, as some had hoped, brands like Tache Clothing and Wild Orange Tree have been selling hippified, sleeveless crochet dresses and loose crochet crop tops. These flowy knits, in vibrant oranges, purples and greens, wouldn’t have looked out of place in the Haight in 1969.
“Our customer definitely is always seeking an element of nostalgia,” said Madeline Sensibile, manager of content and partnerships at Lisa Says Gah, an e-commerce site out of Los Angeles and San Francisco that sells a slew of crochet pieces. Some of its most popular items include amusingly quaint tank tops made from vintage granny squares by the Series, a small company out of New York. Shoppers are “always looking for that playfulness in their outfits,” said Ms. Sensibile. “It’s the idea of getting something that’s vintage, but also reworked for now.”
Some fans of the look have even taken to crocheting themselves. A couple of years ago, Ella Dixon, 23, a cheesemonger who lives in Rockaway, N.J., taught herself to crochet via YouTube. She’s since turned the hobby into a business, generating around $400 a month selling various crochet goods including cardigans and tanks through her own website. Though some pieces take her around 60 hours total to make, Ms. Dixon cherishes the diversion. “I usually crochet before work, after work. I crochet nonstop,” she said.
At-home crocheters like Ms. Dixon sparked what Marian Park, the strategist for trend forecasting company WGSN, called “the craftcore” movement. This trend is led by young, DIY-driven folks who’ve embraced the magical, time-passing powers of knitting and crocheting. (The most famous fresh-faced knitter is Tom Daley, the 27-year-old British swimmer who knit in his spare hours between winning medals at the Tokyo Olympics.) Making one’s clothes, or even buying from small, homespun crocheters like Stahl Knit, also satisfies a desire to be environmentally friendly. Ms. Dixon referred to crochet as “slow fashion,” a painstaking process that represents a deliberate alternative to faddish, low-quality fast fashion.
Corridor 2021
