My Love Affair With Quirky Cardigans Has Begun Thanks to These Looks

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Is it possible for a sweater to take over your mind, body, and soul? That's precisely what happened to me once Marni's striped mohair cardigan entered the scene. Deliciously fluffy and appealingly oversize, it was such a breakout star of the Italian label's S/S 21 collection, and celebs have been flocking to it in droves.

A "boring" staple rarely receives so much attention, but maybe that's a testament to how transformative a statement piece can be. Marni's version has been on my wish list since the summer, but with a $1000 price tag, that's likely where it'll stay. For now, I'm scratching the itch by browsing for inexpensive, equally quirky alternatives and window-shopping for ones I dream of wearing. Below, I'm sharing the results of my research by presenting all of the coolest cardigans I've discovered thus far as well as a few of the looks that have inspired my obsession. Scroll down to see what I mean.

How fashion people are wearing statement cardigans:

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(Image credit: @coreytstokes)

Enter my holy-grail sweater. As it's fuzzy and striped, I could imagine someone like Kurt Cobain wearing this in the '90s.

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(Image credit: @kalysseanthony)

The addition of a trucker hat really sets this look off.

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(Image credit: @namislaura)

This new silhouette has caused quite a stir this season. It's part top, part sweater, so you could easily throw it on with a midi skirt as well as a pair of loose jeans.

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(Image credit: @emiliamuss)

Cropped, vibrant, and chunky—what's not to love about this? It's only fitting that it's styled with statement pants.

Shop the cardigans I'm loving:

Up next: Fashion People Wear Sweater-Vests All the Time—Here Are the Best Styles

Fashion Market Editor

Indya Brown is a fashion editor, stylist, and writer living in Los Angeles. While going to school at Columbia University in New York City, she got her feet wet in the fashion industry interning at Elle magazine, Harper's Bazaar, and New York magazine's The Cut. After graduating in 2016, she joined The Cut as a fashion assistant, eventually working her way up to fashion editor. There, she worked on a multitude of projects, including styling inbook feature stories for New York magazine's print issue, writing and pitching market stories for The Cut, and serving as fashion lead for The Cut's branded content. While New York has been her home for over 10 years, she moved to Los Angeles in the midst of the pandemic in 2020 for a new chapter. Now she is a fashion market editor for Who What Wear, focusing on emerging designers, rising trends on and off the internet, interior design, and BIPOC creatives and brands. Aside from her duties as a fashion market editor, Brown is also a freelance stylist and writer, working on national print and video commercial campaigns for Sephora, The Independent, and Cadillac. Her bylines also include Harper's Bazaar, Vox, and The New York Times. But once the computer goes down and the emails turn off, she's likely eating her way through Koreatown, hunting down vintage furniture, scoping out new outrageous nail designs to try, or taking a hot cycling class.