A staple of the cooler-weather wardrobe of just about everyone, knitwear is the building block with which most great outfits are made. Reaching for one’s ‘favourite sweater’ is commonplace when the mercury drops, drawn to the warmth and comfort of your go-to knit.

For Afterpay Australian Fashion Week, designers took to everyone’s favourite winter knit and offered their own spin, adding texture, and tasselled and macramé detailing. The comfort we find in a sweater, cardigan, or favourite knitted garment, whether through its passed-down nature, or handmade quality, was reimagined by designers, who instead of playing it safe, asked the question: are our knits doing enough?

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Wynn Hamlyn, for example, adapted the knit with a fiery flourish on each of the arm openings. The red of the forearm wasn't enough to recreate the flame of a classic racing-inspired look, so the sweater finished off with yellow tassels, tracing the outline of tongues of fire. It added dimension; it added movement to the sweater. Curled up by the fireplace or racetrack—knitwear found a home.

Ngali—the debut First Nations standalone show at AAFW—had its own take on knitwear. This was a gentle, painstaking approach, another addition to the patterned knitted cardigans menswear has been loving recently. But rather than being the centrepiece of the show, knitwear was the medium, used  to highlight the artisanal approach from designer Denni Francisco, where tried and tested craftsmanship in all its forms was brought to the fore. 

At Erik Yvon, knits were stretched, loose from each weave but taut over the body. Its inherent cosiness was tested to its limits in halter neck style tops with matched long arm-warmers. Knitted tops change presence with their gauge and the tightness of the weave; here was proof that while weaving thickly says one thing, a stretched yarn can unravel something entirely different. 

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And on the other end of the spectrum, where knitwear was highlighted (more often than not, more literally) for its vivacity rather than a demure, at-home feeling, was Iordanes Spyridon Gogos, where yarn was pulled in every direction and dyed in a frenzied rainbow of colours. Ponchos, arm cuffs, skirts, and dresses all presented as a kaleidoscopic array of yarn. Hems were left deliberately trailing out, spilling from arms, legs, and just about everywhere.

The lesson of it all? It's not about knitwear, but about how you do it. The new-age approaches to knitwear this fashion week invites us to take a second look at our favourite sweater, and maybe find comfort in something a little wilder. 

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See more coverage from AAFW 2023 below:

All the street style from day 1 of Australian Fashion Week

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All the street style trends spotted at Australian Fashion Week 2023

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