11 Great Ways To Wear Fair Isle This Winter

Last year, I went shopping the day after Christmas.

I know, you are shocked.

I found the perfect fair isle sweater at J.Crew. It was price slashed and price slashed and price slashes again all the way down to a price that was almost laughable for J.Crew. It was in the $20s. It was the last one left, and it was in my size. "You better snatch it up. We've had three calls already about that sweater," said a very wise employee. And the sweater was mine. And I overwore it last winter. I forgot about it until the weather plummeted recently and I went running to the back of my closet to pull out all of my favorite sweaters and then I remembered how much I love fair isle. And then I started seeing it everywhere—in store windows, in flyers, on models. That's always the way, isn't it?

Fair isle, for the uninitiated, gets its name from a small island in northern Scotland, and refers to "any colourwork knitting where stitches are knit alternately in various colours, with the unused colours stranded across the back of the work." For me, it's less technical and more I-know-it-when-I-see-it.

And I'm seeing it a lot these days.

Here are 11 Great Ways To Wear Fair Isle This Winter: