Kapital 7G Wool Fair Isle “Bone” Sweater

The 7G designation refers to the gauge of the knitting machine: seven needles per inch, producing a heavy, chunky fabric with visible texture and deliberate imperfection. Kapital’s Fair Isle Bone Sweater takes the traditional Scottish Fair Isle technique, a method of stranded colorwork dating to the early twentieth century, and fills its geometric patterns with skulls and crossbones. The same intarsia language that Fair Isle artisans have used for a hundred years, applied to imagery that would get you thrown out of a heritage knitwear shop. Kapital does this constantly: finds a craft tradition old enough and serious enough to survive being made fun of, then makes something with it that is both genuinely well-made and genuinely ridiculous. The bone sweater is knitted with real skill. It is also a sweater with skulls on it. Kapital sees no contradiction.