Speaker 1: You're listening to part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
Speaker 1: and iHeartRadio. Guess what Will? What's that Mango? So you've
Speaker 1: probably noticed that ugly Christmas sweaters have become big business
Speaker 1: over the last decade, with some companies breaking in as
Speaker 1: much as five million dollars each year from kitchy knitwear.
Speaker 1: But do you know that the sweaters also have their
Speaker 1: very own holiday? Yeah?
Speaker 2: I think I think they call it a Christmas right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But a truly goers sweater deserves to be seen
Speaker 1: more than at least one year, and that's why. Ever
Speaker 1: since twenty eleven, the third Friday in December has been
Speaker 1: set aside as National Ugly Christmas Sweater Day. The practice
Speaker 1: started here in the US, but it's now celebrated by
Speaker 1: the fashionably unfashionable all across the world. Some people mark
Speaker 1: the day by running a charity race, throwing a party,
Speaker 1: or organizing a pup. But you can really celebrate however
Speaker 1: you want provide. Of course, you also do it while
Speaker 1: wearing a chunky, cheerful sweater.
Speaker 2: You know when this whole thing started with the ugly
Speaker 2: and ridiculous Christmas sweaters, I have to admit I didn't
Speaker 2: see it having this kind of staying power that whole
Speaker 2: like day glows sweaters with tensil and pom poms and
Speaker 2: light up reindeer. It's just not something I fully expected
Speaker 2: to stick around this long.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So it actually turns out that ugly Christmas sweaters
Speaker 1: are a much older concept than you might think. The
Speaker 1: idea of wearing special festive sweaters for the holidays dates
Speaker 1: back to at least the Victorian era, but back then
Speaker 1: they were advertised simply as Christmas sweaters, and the designs
Speaker 1: were farm were reserved. But things changed by the nineteen
Speaker 1: thirties with the rival of so called jingle bell sweaters,
Speaker 1: which featured both embroidered bells and real metal ones that
Speaker 1: would jingle as you walked.
Speaker 2: So, as you think back to those earlier times, or
Speaker 2: you think back to the nineteen thirties or whatever like,
Speaker 2: were those sweaters ironic as well?
Speaker 1: No, they were still considered tasteful at that point, even
Speaker 1: elegant in some cases, and by the fifties, sweaters started
Speaker 1: incorporating things like Rudolph the Red Nose reindeer and Frosty
Speaker 1: the Snowmen, especially on kids Christmas sweaters, and as the
Speaker 1: decades progressed, adults continued to favor more subtle designs, things
Speaker 1: like snowflake patterns or argyle made to look like wrapping paper.
Speaker 1: But it isn't until the nineteen eighties that Christmas sweaters
Speaker 1: became truly tacky. Designs of previous decades had mostly stuck
Speaker 1: to one holiday icon per sweater, but designers of the
Speaker 1: eighties adopted sort of a kitchen sink approach. Right. They
Speaker 1: put on candy canes, and then they threw on Christmas
Speaker 1: trees and skiing polar bears, and it all went onto
Speaker 1: the same garments.
Speaker 2: All right, So I have to guess by this point
Speaker 2: you're finally seeing that this is like a joke, right,
Speaker 2: like where they considered a joke at that point, I
Speaker 2: need you to get to the point where they become
Speaker 2: a joke.
Speaker 1: So it it doesn't become a joke until ten years
Speaker 1: later in the nineteen nineties, when American culture gets a
Speaker 1: little more jaded and movies like Dumb and Dumbers start
Speaker 1: making holiday sweater jokes. But from then on, ugly Christmas
Speaker 1: sweaters became something to wear ironically, and people started competing
Speaker 1: to find the most over the top patterns. In fact,
Speaker 1: the growing trend pretty much wiped out the supply at
Speaker 1: thrift stores, and by the twenty first century, companies were
Speaker 1: pumping out brand new, purposely TACKI designs to meet the demand.
Speaker 2: Set Mango, this is like a roller coaster for me
Speaker 2: because I'm now I'm going the opposite direction where it
Speaker 2: doesn't feel tongue in cheek enough when people are buying
Speaker 2: these things off the racket full price. So I don't know.
Speaker 2: We're gonna have to talk through this.
Speaker 1: That is definitely true. But our ugly sweater history is
Speaker 1: just the first of nine warm facts to usher in
Speaker 1: sweater season. So let's get cozy and dive in.
Speaker 2: Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm
Speaker 2: Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good
Speaker 2: friend mangesh Hot Ticketerter and on the other side of
Speaker 2: that soundproof glass. I have to be honest, I was
Speaker 2: looking forward to this today because you never know what
Speaker 2: this guy's going to be up to. He's a super
Speaker 2: talented guy. As we've discussed many many times before. He's
Speaker 2: knitting a sweater for everything. Today of course, knit himself
Speaker 2: a holiday sweater. He knitted ones for each of us,
Speaker 2: which was very kind, and then he made a sweater
Speaker 2: for the lamp in there, made a cozy frame for
Speaker 2: the whiteboard in there. It's actually getting a little bit
Speaker 2: out of hand, but that's our talented producer, Dylan Fagan
Speaker 2: over there.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think he said he wasn't going to stop
Speaker 1: until he'd yarn bombed the entire studio, and I don't
Speaker 1: know exactly what that means, but he clearly has a vision.
Speaker 1: So yes, well we're talking sweaters today, a topic I
Speaker 1: know since the first day we started the show all
Speaker 1: these years ago, you said, Mango, we have got to
Speaker 1: do a show on sweaters, but not yet, not yet,
Speaker 1: not yet.
Speaker 2: It wasn't ready.
Speaker 1: And then last week you were like, remember how I
Speaker 1: wanted to do that show on sweaters all those years ago.
Speaker 1: Now is the time. It's finally the time to do this.
Speaker 1: What fact do you want to start with?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was trying to get you in studio immediately
Speaker 2: to do and you weren't ready at that point. But
Speaker 2: now we're both here, We're both ready. Dylan's ready, And
Speaker 2: of course, in doing a whole episode on sweaters, the
Speaker 2: first thing I looked up, which won't surprise you, was
Speaker 2: the story behind the Sweater Song from Weezer.
Speaker 1: Oh man, I know that song as Undone, and I
Speaker 1: feel so old because that song came out like our
Speaker 1: freshman year of high school.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's been it's been a minute, for sure. But
Speaker 2: you know what's interesting is that the Sweater Song, which
Speaker 2: was their first big breakout song, was also the first
Speaker 2: Weezer song that frontman Rivers Cuomo ever wrote.
Speaker 1: I had no idea.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I always thought Undone was this quirky fun song,
Speaker 2: but it's actually more bleak than you might think. So,
Speaker 2: as Cuomo told Billboard Magazine, people thought we were just
Speaker 2: being sarcastic and ironic. But when I wrote the Sweater song,
Speaker 2: to me, it was a very sad song about depression,
Speaker 2: and people heard it and they thought it was hysterical.
Speaker 1: That is so weird. I do not associate that with
Speaker 1: any sort of rough emotions. It's just like a happy,
Speaker 1: fun song to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Apparently this goes back a few years before Weezer's
Speaker 2: first album. The band was struggling to stand out in
Speaker 2: the LA music scene, so Cuomo decided to enroll in
Speaker 2: community college sort of as a backup plan, and then
Speaker 2: one day, during a lecture on essay writing. He had
Speaker 2: an English professor who was explaining the importance of a
Speaker 2: strong thesis statement, and he likened it to the thread
Speaker 2: of a sweater. He was explaining, a strong thesis statement
Speaker 2: gives kind of shape to the entire essay, but a
Speaker 2: weak one is like a loose thread. So if you
Speaker 2: pull on it, the whole thing unravels. Image sticks with Cuomo,
Speaker 2: and so after class it goes home and he incorporates
Speaker 2: it into a chorus. Three years later, the same song
Speaker 2: proved to be the big break the band had been
Speaker 2: looking for. I always love stories like this, like you
Speaker 2: never know where the inspiration is going to come from.
Speaker 2: But while the Sweater song might not be as funny
Speaker 2: as people think, the band did have a sense of
Speaker 2: humor about it by the time they came to shoot
Speaker 2: the music video, as all four members made sure not
Speaker 2: to wear a sweater for the filming.
Speaker 1: That's funny. So since we're talking sweaters, of course, I've
Speaker 1: got to bring up my main man, Fred Rogers. Now,
Speaker 1: we did a whole episode dedicated to mister Rogers way
Speaker 1: back in twenty seventeen, which people should check out if
Speaker 1: they haven't, and in it we mentioned one of the
Speaker 1: most well known facts about him, which is that many
Speaker 1: of the cardigans Fred wore on the show were actually
Speaker 1: knit for him by his mother. But one thing we
Speaker 1: didn't cover in that episode is what a hard time
Speaker 1: the production team had trying to source new sweaters for
Speaker 1: Fred after his mom passed away in nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 1: So the stockpile of hand knit sweaters she left behind
Speaker 1: kept her son Confiance screen for upout another ten years.
Speaker 1: But by the early nineteen nineties, after two dozen seasons
Speaker 1: and hundreds of episodes, many of the garments were starting
Speaker 1: to look their age right. They were starting to get
Speaker 1: a little threadbare, and it was clear that a new
Speaker 1: crop of cardigans was needed. But of course, this is
Speaker 1: public television we're talking about, and the show didn't have
Speaker 1: this huge budget commission a new hand knit wardrobe or
Speaker 1: anything like that, So instead the art department launched this
Speaker 1: desperate search for lookalike sweaters. They poured through catalogs, they
Speaker 1: hunted the rats at stores all over Pittsburgh, but nothing
Speaker 1: they found matched the style of Fred's trademark cardigans, And,
Speaker 1: as the show's producer explained to Smithsonian quote, nobody wore
Speaker 1: those zippered sweaters. They just weren't cool then, so what
Speaker 1: do they end up doing? The show's art director Kathy
Speaker 1: Borland found a suitable stand in. Eventually, it wasn't from
Speaker 1: a store, though. She actually spotted a postal worker on
Speaker 1: the street wearing a zippered cardigan that kind of looked
Speaker 1: like Fred, so she chases him down. She gets the
Speaker 1: name of the manufacturer from his sweater's label, Like I
Speaker 1: imagine her just sort of like pulling it and looking
Speaker 1: at the tag, although I'm sure it was a lot
Speaker 1: nicer than that, And she was able to buy a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of white sweaters and then she dyed them
Speaker 1: different colors in this giant soup pot.
Speaker 2: That's amazing. I know you said she probably was very
Speaker 2: nice about it, and I'm sure she was, But I
Speaker 2: also like to imagine her in a sense of panic
Speaker 2: and just having to basically like rip this thing and
Speaker 2: being like I need it for mister Rogers. That I
Speaker 2: get it, I get it. I would happily dedicate a
Speaker 2: sweater to that, But you know, I know that he
Speaker 2: wore different colored sweaters, but honestly, when I picture mister Rogers,
Speaker 2: he's always wearing a red one.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean. Yeah, I think most people
Speaker 1: actually remember the red ones because that's the color he's
Speaker 1: usually wearing in all the marketing materials. He also donated
Speaker 1: a red sweater to the National Museum of American History
Speaker 1: if after his mom died. It was one of the
Speaker 1: ones she had knit for him, and he was always
Speaker 1: so proud that something she had handmade was in the Smithsonian,
Speaker 1: which you know, is super sweet.
Speaker 2: That is very sweet. It does make me curious, though,
Speaker 2: and I know this is the type of thing that
Speaker 2: our crew loves to dig into. Did he wear a
Speaker 2: certain color more than the rest or was it pretty
Speaker 2: evenly split?
Speaker 1: I actually had a similar question, and Gabe looked into
Speaker 1: this and he found a data writer named Owen Phillips
Speaker 1: who made this handy chart that tracks the color of
Speaker 1: every sweater mister Rogers wore from nineteen seventy nine until
Speaker 1: the show's finale in two thousand and one. And the
Speaker 1: chart actually does reveal some fun surprises. For instance, Fred
Speaker 1: wore a neon blue cardigan exactly one time in the
Speaker 1: early nineteen eighties and then never again.
Speaker 2: That's a little too wild, I think.
Speaker 1: Also as the years went by, mister Rogers gradually moved
Speaker 1: away from pastels in favor of darker earth tones, And
Speaker 1: in fact, it turns out that green was the color
Speaker 1: he wore most frequently. He donned a green sweater in
Speaker 1: seventy four episodes, compared to just fifty four in which
Speaker 1: he wore a red one. That said Fred Rogers was
Speaker 1: also red green colorblind, so really it all looked brown
Speaker 1: to him.
Speaker 2: And I also would like to see if there's data
Speaker 2: on which one Eddie Murphy wore most often playing mister Robinson.
Speaker 2: Of course, a spoof of mister Rogers on SNL. So, Gabe,
Speaker 2: if you can look into that, that will be helpful
Speaker 2: in the next very helpful.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know. So.
Speaker 2: One thing I didn't realize is that there was a
Speaker 2: time where you could actually receive negative attention for wearing sweaters.
Speaker 2: And this is a story about a woman named Francine Godfried,
Speaker 2: and for a brief period in the late nineteen sixties,
Speaker 2: she was better known to New Yorkers as Wall Street's
Speaker 2: sweater Girl. Now, this goes back to a more prudish
Speaker 2: era when in the mid twentieth century many people were
Speaker 2: downright scandalized by the side of a woman in a
Speaker 2: tight sweater. In fact, the derice of terms sweater girl
Speaker 2: was going to describe any woman who wore a tight,
Speaker 2: form fitting sweater. This was a look that was popularized
Speaker 2: by Hollywood actresses like Glanna Turner Jane Mansfield. But in
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty eight, the most famous woman to sport it
Speaker 2: was this twenty one year old clerical worker named Francine Gottfried.
Speaker 2: She was a Brooklyn native. She lived with her parents
Speaker 2: in Williamsburg, and she just started working in New York's
Speaker 2: Financial District in May of that year. But by late August,
Speaker 2: there was a small group of men who had taken
Speaker 2: notice to the tight sweater she wore, and they began
Speaker 2: timing her daily arrival at the Wall Street subway station.
Speaker 2: This all sounds so weird, but it's actually true. So
Speaker 2: over the next few weeks, those initial group of gawkers
Speaker 2: told their creepy buddies, until finally, in mid September, there
Speaker 2: were more than two thousand leering men just waiting to
Speaker 2: catch a glimpse of her, some of whom reportedly climb
Speaker 2: trees and lampposts to get a better view. I mean,
Speaker 2: how strange is this mango?
Speaker 1: That is so weird? Also, can you I mention how
Speaker 1: scary that must have been, Like You're just trying to
Speaker 1: go to work and suddenly there's this mob of Wall
Speaker 1: Street guys lining up to augle you at the subway.
Speaker 2: It sounds terrible and it's obviously very strange, But the
Speaker 2: wildest part is that the crowd of sweater girl watchers
Speaker 2: just kept growing. So in the afternoon of September I'm
Speaker 2: not kidding, like these numbers are just bananas here. So
Speaker 2: on the afternoon of September nineteenth, more than five thousand people,
Speaker 2: five thousand people left to work early to go watch
Speaker 2: fran scene exit the subway. There must not have been
Speaker 2: anything in the world interesting happening at that point, and
Speaker 2: it was such a madhouse that police had to close
Speaker 2: the streets and escort her through the crowd. And this
Speaker 2: chaotic scene was reported by all the papers later that day,
Speaker 2: with the New York Times even publishing Francene's measurements, which
Speaker 2: is perhaps the most upsetting part of all of this.
Speaker 2: It's like, you expect certain people to just be dumb
Speaker 2: about certain things, but when a paper like that joins
Speaker 2: in and is publishing stuff like that, it's just it's
Speaker 2: just ridiculous.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure getting more press attention only slowed down
Speaker 1: the crowds right right, people were over it by the
Speaker 1: end of the reporting.
Speaker 2: Exactly right. Well, unfortunately, the following day the crowd doubled
Speaker 2: to ten thousand people. I know, all this sounds like
Speaker 2: a joke and I'm just going to keep making up
Speaker 2: bigger numbers, but this is true now, that is no,
Speaker 2: You're exactly right. And none of them got what they
Speaker 2: wanted that day, as Francine stayed home, understandably for her
Speaker 2: own safety, but the mob was unfazed. They came back
Speaker 2: the next day to try again, and so The Times
Speaker 2: of course gets in on the action. Reporting on it,
Speaker 2: they described the anticipation, writing quote ticker tape floated down
Speaker 2: from the high buildings. Newspapers as far away as Australia
Speaker 2: waited for pictures, and for the second day, a cheering,
Speaker 2: good natured crowd of more than ten thousand jammed Broad
Speaker 2: Street in front of the New York Stock Exchange and
Speaker 2: nearby Wall Street from wall to wall.
Speaker 1: That's so crazy, one that like international press was suddenly
Speaker 1: coming in for this, but also like to call it
Speaker 1: good nature. It feels so bizarre.
Speaker 2: Yeah, That's what stood out to me.
Speaker 1: But what happened, like did Franccene start driving to work
Speaker 1: or go incognito or what happens from here?
Speaker 2: Not exactly. I mean she did start getting off at
Speaker 2: a different station, and about a year later she reportedly
Speaker 2: left her job on Wall Street. And I do want
Speaker 2: to note that Francine was not the first or even
Speaker 2: the last sweater girl to be leered at by big
Speaker 2: crowds on Wall Street. But it is interesting to see
Speaker 2: how the growing women's movement decided to push back.
Speaker 1: How did they do that?
Speaker 2: So in nineteen seventy the first national oglein was held
Speaker 2: in Wall Street in which women use these cat calls
Speaker 2: and harassed stockbrokers on their way to work to make
Speaker 2: a statement both in real life and depressed that they
Speaker 2: were tired of being pestered and objectified when they were
Speaker 2: just trying to walk down the street to work.
Speaker 1: That's interesting that that was the way they pushed back.
Speaker 1: But why don't we move away from the upsetting side
Speaker 1: of sweaters and back to the cozy side. And what
Speaker 1: better way to do that than by telling you and
Speaker 1: our audiences about the Australian Wildlife Clinic that distributes handmade
Speaker 1: sweaters to penguins.
Speaker 2: You know what, coming into this, I knew I could
Speaker 2: count on you for a good mister Rogers fact, and
Speaker 2: I knew you'd find something good related to animals and
Speaker 2: penguins just takes it to another level. So why do
Speaker 2: they give out sweaters to penguins?
Speaker 1: You know? Well, I thought you'd never ask, but.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The program started in the late nineteen nineties after a
Speaker 1: series of oil spills off Australia's Phillip Island threatened local wildlife,
Speaker 1: including the island sizable population of little penguins. And to
Speaker 1: be clear, I'm not trying to be cute here. The
Speaker 1: species name is actually called quote little penguins. They're like
Speaker 1: these pocket sized penguins, also known as fairy penguins, and
Speaker 1: most of them are about twelve inches tall.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, yeah, that's pretty cute. So I have to
Speaker 2: ask why do penguins need sweaters other than the fact
Speaker 2: that obviously it sounds adorable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, every tiny animal should own a winter or wardrobe
Speaker 1: of sweat.
Speaker 2: But I forget I asked, Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1: So, actually, oil spills are a problem for penguins of
Speaker 1: any size because oil clumps their feathers together, and this
Speaker 1: can expose their skin to freezing temperatures, but it can
Speaker 1: also weigh them down as they swim and they hunt
Speaker 1: for food. And the worst part is that when a
Speaker 1: penguin tries to preen and clean off the oil with
Speaker 1: their beaks, they actually wind up ingesting the oil, which
Speaker 1: of course makes them sick. So these sweaters act as
Speaker 1: a barrier to keep the penguins from picking at their
Speaker 1: oily feathers, at least until the rescue staff can wash
Speaker 1: them and clean them.
Speaker 2: It's a really smart idea and really sweet too, but
Speaker 2: I mean, honestly, it is still sort of weird, but
Speaker 2: that's I like that they came up with it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So the practice was pioneered by the rehabilitation team
Speaker 1: at Phillip Island's Penguin Foundation. They started a program called
Speaker 1: Knits for Nature to collect as many tiny sweaters or
Speaker 1: jumpers as they're called there from local volunteers. Then, as
Speaker 1: word spread, people began to knit and donate penguin sweaters
Speaker 1: from all over the world, and they've collected well over
Speaker 1: two hundred thousand sweaters over the last couple decades, although
Speaker 1: not all of them are deemed suitable for actual penguins,
Speaker 1: like some are too big or too small to fit correctly,
Speaker 1: and others came embellished with like pomp pomps that would
Speaker 1: potentially pose a choking hazard. But you don't have to
Speaker 1: worry about it. Those sweaters still get used. All of
Speaker 1: the takier sweaters, like all the Christmas sweaters, etc. Are
Speaker 1: put on plush penguin toys and then sold to raise
Speaker 1: funds for the island's conservation efforts. And since twenty twelve,
Speaker 1: the sale of the sweater penguin plushies has raised roughly
Speaker 1: four hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: That is wild and pretty awesome. So are they still
Speaker 2: accepting donations then yeah, but at.
Speaker 1: This point and it's for nature, has enough sweaters to
Speaker 1: meet demand for many seasons to come. But they still
Speaker 1: accept sweaters to sell on their plush penguins. So for
Speaker 1: any animal loving knitters out there, you can find all
Speaker 1: the information and the free jumper patterns at Penguin Foundation
Speaker 1: dot org.
Speaker 2: That's pretty cool, all right. Well to go in a
Speaker 2: different direction though, I guess a little bit animal related.
Speaker 2: Did you know that one famous musician wore a sweater
Speaker 2: so distinctive that it actually inspired his lifelong stage name.
Speaker 1: Please say it's Snoop Doggy Dog.
Speaker 2: I will not say that. It is not Snoop Dogg
Speaker 2: and it's not bad Bunny either. It's actually Sting, the
Speaker 2: former frontman of the Police and current Mega mentor on
Speaker 2: NBC's The Voice Mengo Mega Mentor. That's how it's amazing.
Speaker 2: His birth name is Gordon Matthew Sumner, which I actually
Speaker 2: did not know that. But he often wore a black
Speaker 2: and yellow striped sweater as a teenager, and his bandmates
Speaker 2: teased them for looking like a giant bee, and so
Speaker 2: they started to call him Stif.
Speaker 1: That's really funny. For some reason, I always assumed it
Speaker 1: was like a nod to the Lord of the Rings
Speaker 1: because Frodo has that little glowing sword called Sting. But
Speaker 1: oh yeah, getting a nickname from a funny looking sweater
Speaker 1: is way way better. And I actually really love that
Speaker 1: he kept the nickname all those years later.
Speaker 2: Yeah. By the way, if anyone ever wondered whether we're nerds,
Speaker 2: we give them one little fact like that every once
Speaker 2: in a while that you thought maybe it came from
Speaker 2: Lord of the Rings and remembered the name of the
Speaker 2: sword that Frodo had it's pretty great. We need one
Speaker 2: of those every episode. But you know, it doesn't sound
Speaker 2: like he had much of a choice with this nickname.
Speaker 2: His friends started calling him Sting even after he stopped
Speaker 2: wearing the beast ripe sweater. Then, to make matters worse,
Speaker 2: his mom started using it. In fact, in twenty eleven,
Speaker 2: the singer told Time magazine, even my wife calls me Sting.
Speaker 2: I was never called Gordon. You could shell Gordon in
Speaker 2: the middle of the street and I would just move
Speaker 2: out of your way.
Speaker 1: It is really amazing that something as arbitrary as a
Speaker 1: sweater ends up sticking with him for that long. It's nuts,
Speaker 1: it really is.
Speaker 2: It is worth noting that while Sting has embraced his
Speaker 2: be based persona, he never went so far as to
Speaker 2: legally adopt it. According to a twenty sixteen interview with
Speaker 2: Howard Stern, Sting's passport still says Gordon Sumner.
Speaker 1: So, after all your music facts, I'm starting to feel
Speaker 1: left out here, so I'm gonna skip ahead and throw
Speaker 1: one of my own in. This fact is about Nirvana
Speaker 1: frontman Kurt Cobain, because as of twenty twenty four, his
Speaker 1: sweater is the most expensive sweater ever sold at auction,
Speaker 1: And I'm sure you know this what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: It's the olive green one. Yeah, that was on MTV's
Speaker 1: Unplugged Concert way back in nineteen ninety four. But the
Speaker 1: show was taped just five months before Cobaine's passing, which
Speaker 1: means that's really the last time a lot of fans,
Speaker 1: including myself, saw him was wearing that sweater on TV.
Speaker 2: And was it something he had worn before? Was it
Speaker 2: just part of the wardrobe for the taping.
Speaker 1: No, he definitely warn it before he He worred on
Speaker 1: tour for a few months by that point, and there
Speaker 1: was anything fancy or costume about it. According to the
Speaker 1: Cardigan's label, it was made in the nineteen sixties by
Speaker 1: a company called Manhattan Industries. The fabric is acrylic, mohair
Speaker 1: and lycra and fashion historians think it retailed for about
Speaker 1: sixteen dollars by at that point, but Cobain probably paid
Speaker 1: less for it since he bought it at a thrift
Speaker 1: store in Seattle in the early nineties.
Speaker 2: So how did it end up at auction?
Speaker 1: Well, this is an interesting story. After Kurt's death, Courtney
Speaker 1: Love gave the sweater up to the family's nanny, who
Speaker 1: held on to as a keepsake for about twenty years,
Speaker 1: but in twenty fifteen, she decides to bring it to
Speaker 1: auction because she has cancer and she's trying to pay
Speaker 1: for her cancer treatments. The sweater was expected to fetch
Speaker 1: about fifty thousand dollars at auction, but it wound up
Speaker 1: selling for one hundred and thirty seven thousand dollars instead.
Speaker 1: It is obviously a hefty price tag, but the buyer
Speaker 1: did get a little something extra with his purchase. When
Speaker 1: he reached into one of the pockets, he found what
Speaker 1: he described as quote, some kind of brown crunchy something,
Speaker 1: which he guesses was either chocolate or vomit.
Speaker 2: It feels like you should know the difference, but hold on.
Speaker 2: So the nanny never washed the sweater, I guess not friendly.
Speaker 2: She left it exactly as she had received it twenty
Speaker 2: years earlier, right down to the crunchy treat in the pocket.
Speaker 2: But wow.
Speaker 1: The buyer in twenty fifteen also declined to clean it,
Speaker 1: believing that the sweater's musty smell, it's missing button, and
Speaker 1: all the cigarette burns, which had multiple cigarette burns. All
Speaker 1: of this added to the sweater's character and also its value.
Speaker 1: All of this proves to be a wise decision for
Speaker 1: the buyer, because when he put the sweater up for
Speaker 1: auction in twenty nineteen, it sold for three hundred and
Speaker 1: thirty four thousand dollars, more than twice would he pay
Speaker 1: for it, And so I would imagine that's the highest
Speaker 1: auction price ever paid for a sweater. I mean, at
Speaker 1: least until the current owner decides to part with, at
Speaker 1: which point it'll probably go for even more.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would imagine. All right, Well, two more sweater
Speaker 2: facts to go. But before we get to those, let's
Speaker 2: take a quick break.
Speaker 1: You listen to Part Time Genius and we're counting down
Speaker 1: nine thread pulling facts about sweaters. So, will are you
Speaker 1: a sweater guy? Like I wear cardigans a lot, but
Speaker 1: I don't really think of you as wearing sweaters a
Speaker 1: whole bunch.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a really personal question, Mango. But part of
Speaker 2: the reason I had been pushing to do this episode
Speaker 2: is I'm ready to go ahead and state it publicly
Speaker 2: that I have become a sweater guy. For years, I
Speaker 2: was not as a kid. I found them itchy. I
Speaker 2: couldn't do sweaters. I refuse to wear them. But over
Speaker 2: the last few years. Maybe it's a dad thing. I
Speaker 2: don't know, but I am totally a sweater guy now, Mango.
Speaker 1: I love that you finally embraced this about yourself. We've
Speaker 1: been waiting for that moment.
Speaker 2: This was my safe space to admit that thing.
Speaker 1: You know, It's funny because I just think about it
Speaker 1: this week. And in elementary school, we had this project
Speaker 1: where we had to figure out, like how we'd live
Speaker 1: as adults, right, so we had to look up apartments
Speaker 1: in the local paper to see where we'd rent a place.
Speaker 1: We learned how to make a food budget and an
Speaker 1: entertainment budget, all of which I've forgotten how to do.
Speaker 1: But as part of that, I actually illustrated how I
Speaker 1: was going to dress. And while I don't live in Wilmington, Delaware,
Speaker 1: I don't eat burritos four times a week. Like like
Speaker 1: my way to say a food budget was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'll just buy like a bag of frozen fries and
Speaker 1: burritos and I'll use the rest on entertainment.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 1: But I do dress exactly like a nine year old
Speaker 1: me pictured myself. I wear low top soccer sneakers. I
Speaker 1: wear collared shirts and cardigans. But what's really funny about
Speaker 1: it is like, now, that's fairly common style, but when
Speaker 1: I was in fourth or fifth grade, people were like,
Speaker 1: what is this lazy grandparents style? You want to look like?
Speaker 2: Yep, that's amazing.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe it was mister Rogers' influence, but
Speaker 1: something clearly struck a chord with a style sense. So
Speaker 1: what do you want to do with your last sweater fact?
Speaker 2: All right, well, I felt like we both got some
Speaker 2: things out there. This is great that we've had a
Speaker 2: sweater episode to work out some things. But I liked
Speaker 2: your last penguin fact. So, speaking of sweaters for a
Speaker 2: good cause, my next fact takes us back to the
Speaker 2: First World War, when the American government promoted knitting as
Speaker 2: a patriotic duty. And that may sound like a strange thing,
Speaker 2: but even before US soldiers were deployed overseas, organizations like
Speaker 2: the American Red Cross had encouraged the public to knit
Speaker 2: and donate warm clothing as a way to assist foreign soldiers.
Speaker 2: So it makes a lot of sense. And once the
Speaker 2: US formally entered the war in nineteen seventeen, these knitting
Speaker 2: campaigns kicked into high gear. These people were churning out
Speaker 2: roughly three hundred and sixty million knit garments in the
Speaker 2: course of just two years.
Speaker 1: Three hundred and fifty million garments. That is no joke.
Speaker 1: So who is it that is working the needles for
Speaker 1: all this knitting charity?
Speaker 2: You know? That's the thing. These so called wool brigades
Speaker 2: included everybody. You had, kids, adults, senior citizens. Even the
Speaker 2: inmates that sing sing prison were said to a form
Speaker 2: knitting circles and they'd be sitting out in the prison
Speaker 2: yard knitting. It's actually pretty amazing.
Speaker 1: I mean, I liked the enthusiasm, and I liked that
Speaker 1: they trusted them to do that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course. And you know, while most of the
Speaker 2: work was done by women, as you might expect given
Speaker 2: the era, many men did their part as well, and
Speaker 2: the ones who couldn't fight abroad were encouraged to knit
Speaker 2: at work during their lunch hours. And the soldiers who
Speaker 2: were wounded on the battlefield actually took the knitting and
Speaker 2: their hospital beds gave them something to think about.
Speaker 1: That is insane, Like, I've never heard of this, So
Speaker 1: what kind of things were all these people knitting?
Speaker 2: A good deal of the output was not surprisingly wool sweaters,
Speaker 2: but patriotic knitters also produced mass quantities of mufflers, scarves,
Speaker 2: you know, most importantly socks, which were in dire need
Speaker 2: because of the brutal conditions of trench warfare. But despite
Speaker 2: all the good intentions there there was a downside to
Speaker 2: sourcing clothing from amateur knitters. Namely, they didn't always know
Speaker 2: what they were doing, and so the knitwhere soldiers received
Speaker 2: on the front lines weren't always up to snuff, and
Speaker 2: at least one soldier offered some not so constructive feedback
Speaker 2: in the form of a short poem. I know you
Speaker 2: and I both love it when people expressed their thoughts
Speaker 2: through poetry, and I found this from our friends over
Speaker 2: at Atlas Obscura and it reads as follows. A pair
Speaker 2: of socks. They are some fit. I used one for
Speaker 2: a helmet and the other for a mit. Glad to
Speaker 2: hear you're doing your bit, But who the blank said
Speaker 2: you could knit pretty great? Huh.
Speaker 1: It almost feels like that old Cosby showed episode where
Speaker 1: makes theo a shirt and he's complaining about how big
Speaker 1: it is and just like just tucking in and he's like, Denise,
Speaker 1: it's tucked into my.
Speaker 2: Socks, said it was going to pass as as a
Speaker 2: real Gordon Gartreel. I think I'm going to Gartreel. Amazing
Speaker 2: the kinds of things that stick in our brains.
Speaker 1: I do love the idea of how misshapens over the
Speaker 1: knitwear must be. But speaking of getting into knitting, my
Speaker 1: last fact actually starts back in twenty thirteen when the
Speaker 1: Norwegian television network NRK broadcast a special event called National
Speaker 1: Knitting Evening.
Speaker 2: I got it, mimengo, that sounds like a long evening.
Speaker 1: You have no idea. The show actually lasted twelve full hours,
Speaker 1: including four hours of knitting commentary, followed by eight and
Speaker 1: a half hours of what the network build is quote
Speaker 1: long quiet sequences of knitting and spinning.
Speaker 2: So wow.
Speaker 1: Of course, this is all for the phenomenon we've discussed
Speaker 1: before called slow TV. Is in this genre of things
Speaker 1: like a seven and a half hour train journey or
Speaker 1: There was actually a trilogy of shows devoted to firewood
Speaker 1: that they did. The three episodes were National Firewood Morning,
Speaker 1: National Firewood Evening, and National Firewood Night. Wow.
Speaker 2: That sounds riveting and I'm glad they did three different
Speaker 2: versions because I imagine they are just incredibly different.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you know, first off, this is supposed to
Speaker 1: be an antidote to the addictive nature of smartphones and
Speaker 1: this smartphone culture we're all part of now, right, But
Speaker 1: also listen to nur Case synopsis because it is really
Speaker 1: really fun. This is what it says about National Knitting
Speaker 1: Evening quote twelve hours non stop knitting. We knit our
Speaker 1: way into the night by dressing up a Harley Davidson
Speaker 1: in knitting clothes, which obviously would appeal to Dylan, but
Speaker 1: also you will get tips on how to knit, learn
Speaker 1: about the history of knitting, and meet enthusiastic knitters. From
Speaker 1: midnight on we capp sure the back to back world
Speaker 1: record from Australia, which means that we will have to
Speaker 1: produce a sweater from sheep's back to humans back in
Speaker 1: less than four hours, fifty one minutes and fourteen seconds,
Speaker 1: which oh they also ended by saying, wish as luck.
Speaker 2: You know, Mango, I feel like you bury the lead
Speaker 2: about the back to back challenge. I mean a sweater
Speaker 2: knit off one animal's back onto another, Like now I
Speaker 2: want to.
Speaker 1: See this, I know I do. And apparently Norwegian's felt
Speaker 1: the same way because about one point three million people,
Speaker 1: which is more than a fifth of the total population
Speaker 1: tuned in for National Knitting Evening. The average viewer actually
Speaker 1: stuck around for at least four hours.
Speaker 2: That is wild. You know, it's a difficult decision, Mango.
Speaker 2: It's like, do I go home and hunt for an
Speaker 2: hour of what to watch on Netflix and fall asleep
Speaker 2: before I watch anything, or do I just go straight
Speaker 2: to the knitting and then fall asleep.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think you can lose with other option.
Speaker 2: You're right. Well, I know I was the one who's
Speaker 2: been pushing to do this sweater episode. But between the
Speaker 2: penguin fact and the one about Norway's must see TV,
Speaker 2: and of course our hero mister Rogers, I think you've
Speaker 2: earned this week's trophy. Mango.
Speaker 1: Oh I love it and I'm really grateful, But did
Speaker 1: you please start a trophy with a tiny knitted cactus? Like?
Speaker 1: Where'd you get this?
Speaker 2: That Dylan is a machine so he knit it for
Speaker 2: me Earlier this week I just had this gut feeling
Speaker 2: you were going to win it.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm guessing you knit a cactus because he loves
Speaker 1: dry humor. I'm gonna place this proudly on my bookshelf
Speaker 1: where I definitely won't water it, but that's gonna do
Speaker 1: it for today's Part Time Genius. If you like our show,
Speaker 1: let us know by writing as a review on Apple
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Speaker 1: know the handle it's at. Part Time Genius and from Will, Mary, Gabe,
Speaker 1: Dylan and myself, thank you so much for listening and
Speaker 1: bundle up. It's chilli out there. Part Time Genius is
Speaker 1: a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. This show is hosted
Speaker 1: by Will Pearson and Me Mongas Chatikler and research by
Speaker 1: our good pal Mary Philip Sandy. Today's episode was engineered
Speaker 1: and produced by the wonderful Dylan Fagan with support from
Speaker 1: Tyler Klang. The show is executive produced for iHeart by
Speaker 1: Katrina Norbel and Ali Perry, with social media support from
Speaker 1: Sasha Gay, Trustee Dara Potts and Viney Shorey. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.