Harry Styles’ viral JW Anderson cardigan to go on show at the Victoria & Albert Museum

It’s the knit that spawned a thousand TikTok knock-offs 
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Naomi May18 November 2020

In February, before You Know What happened, Harry Styles was rehearsing for a performance on American chat show The Today Show. For the occasion, the pop star wore a white t-shirt, a pair of classic blue jeans, a string of pearls and a Rubik’s Cube-esque cardigan by designer JW Anderson. 

Little did Styles know that the cardigan he’d so nonchalantly thrown on would swiftly go viral. ‘Stylers’ began knitting their own iterations of the kaleidoscopic cardi and #HarryStylesCardigan has now been viewed more than 39 million times on TikTok. It led to JW Anderson posting the exact sewing pattern with a How-To tutorial on YouTube. 

“I am so impressed and incredibly humbled by this trend and everyone knitting the cardigan,” the designer wrote at the time. “I really wanted to show our appreciation so we are sharing the pattern with everyone. Keep it up!”

Now it’s not just Styles’ fans who want to get their hands on the crocheted knit from Anderson’s Spring/Summer 2020 men’s collection, as London’s Victoria & Albert museum has requested the OG cardi to immortalise as part of its permanent collection.

The team at the V&A believes the knit is emblematic of society’s adoption of more eco-friendly and conscious practices as well as an example of the nation’s creativity during lockdown. In a statement, the V& A said: “We are keen to acquire an example of the JW Anderson cardigan that was made popular by Harry Styles. We are still working on the details.”

“It’s going to be in their permanent collection,” Style’s stylist Harry Lambert told Vogue. “Is that not sick? Is that not the most epic thing?”

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