VAPORE (Italie) vintage années 80, motif jacquard, zigzag

SUNDAZED & OUTSIDE SOCIETY

...The 1990s crewneck jacquard sweater by Vapore Italy manifests as a compressed knit architecture defined by mechanical precision, chromatic sharpness, and a spatial tension that transforms fiber into a medium of visual orchestration. Engineered through flatbed mechanical knitting, the garment’s high-contrast zigzag motif unfolds as a continuous jacquard field across the torso and sleeves, rendered in vibrant turquoise and charcoal black. The use of programmed pattern logic—absent the irregularity of hand intarsia—ensures uninterrupted alignment and graphic cohesion, reaffirming the piece’s constructional integrity. The yarn, likely a worsted wool or a wool-synthetic blend, presents a dry, low-pilling surface with tight fiber alignment engineered for visual clarity and structural resilience. This material character aligns it with the fiber engineering traditions upheld by Johnstons of Elgin, Drumohr, and William Lockie, where the yarn’s function is inseparable from its aesthetic role. The sweater’s cropped, boxy silhouette is defined by a truncated torso, capacious arms, and tightly calibrated 1x1 ribbing at the cuffs, hem, and neckline—a proportional logic that compresses the body while exaggerating breadth. This volumetric containment echoes the sculptural eccentricity of Stefan Cooke and Gianluca Capannolo, while the silhouette modulation through textile engineering—rather than tailoring—finds kinship in the ergonomic spatial practices of Shinyakozuka and the volumetric grammars of Lauren Manoogian and Colhay’s. The absence of overt branding, fastenings, or appliqué reinforces a purist constructional ethos, where all expressive weight is borne by yarn behavior, gauge calibration, and the mathematically precise execution of the motif. This minimalism reflects the disciplined methodologies of Howlin and the constructional restraint of Johnstons of Elgin, where design coherence is achieved through textile fidelity rather than surface embellishment. The sweater’s visual field—a jagged, interlocking zigzag matrix—operates not as decorative excess but as compositional structure, producing a rhythmic instability that evokes the kinetic abstraction of mid-century geometric design. Its vibrational angularity channels the post-industrial optical strategies of Kiko Kostadinov and Arthur Arbesser, while the controlled theatricality of Walter Van Beirendonck reverberates in the motif’s capacity to distort silhouette and encode movement. PHIPPS’s fiber-conscious but visually assertive textile language offers a parallel in the way technical purity is harnessed to amplify graphical complexity, while Minä Perhonen’s cryptic narrative abstraction finds a quieter echo in the sweater’s refusal to resolve into legible cultural citation. Instead, its interlocked diagonals construct meaning through modular logic, where repetition substitutes for symbolism. Programmed into a repeat-based grid, each diagonal segment becomes an architectural unit, a system of encoded tension that resonates with the modular abstraction of Sasquatchfabrix and the deconstructed symbolism of Cmmn Swdn. Chromatically, the turquoise-black contrast initiates a dual reading—simultaneously theatrical and methodical—an effect mirrored in Bless’s surrealist spatial grammars and Mira Mikati’s orchestrated chromatic exuberance. Yet the sweater avoids chaos: its exuberance is rendered through control, its eccentricity through structural literacy. The lack of fiber halo, typical of lofted or brushed knits, situates this garment alongside brands like Mr. Mittens, Alanui, and Isa Boulder, who engage worsted-spun fibers as sculptural agents rather than decorative substrates. The result is a garment that transcends nostalgia or retro revivalism. It occupies a specific temporal and conceptual threshold, bridging the techno-graphic urgency of late-1980s visual culture with the compositional experimentation that would define early 2000s knitwear. Referencing Jenny Kee’s density of motif and Goldworm’s knit dynamism while anticipating the codified chromatic tactics of ERL and Sunnei, the sweater participates in a lineage where pattern is neither anecdotal nor ironic—it is infrastructural. Katerina Kvit’s sculptural syntax of surface geometry finds a mirror here in the programmable patternwork that reorganizes the body’s spatial logic. This is post-graphic knitwear: a self-contained visual system where shape, yarn, and chromatic juxtaposition cohere into a unified, coded matrix of motion and density. Beneath its optical volatility lies an unwavering technical rigor—an articulation of knitwear as emotive structure, engineered code, and compressed architecture.

Brand: VAPORE
Origin: Italy

80s Vintage (mint condition)


Size: M

Fabric: Knit
Composition: Polyacryl

Measurements (cm)
Chest: 65
Length: 65
Shoulder: 50
Sleeve: 59



SKU: 004210

€ 41.52