Sweater Equity: Get Wrapped Up in These Threads

Garnet Hill's

slim-fit cardigan, in merino wool with grosgrain ribbon placket, comes in floral or leopard-skin prints. $88; www.garnethill.com [1]

Credit: Mark Wagoner

At this time of year, all over the country, the redoubtable cardigan sweater is answering the call to duty, marching to the front, ready to protect America's teachers from drafty classrooms and blustery playgrounds. If this martial tone seems at odds with the peaceful pleasures of wool knits with buttons down the front as famously worn by such unthreatening civilians as Fred Rogers, consider James Thomas Brudenell, seventh earl of Cardigan, a British cavalry officer credited with inventing the worthy garment.

Lord Cardigan is best known among historians as the high-born fool who led his men into what Tennyson called "the Valley of Death" in the legendary Charge of the Light Brigade during the Crimean War, having misunderstood an order from his brother-in-law, Lord Lucan, with whom he happened not to be on speaking terms. Cardigan rode straight up to the Turkish cannons and straight back out miraculously unscathed, but the almost complete annihilation of his elite 11th Hussars remains a blot on the chap's escutcheon.

Devotees of quintessential fashion, however, may hold him in warm regard. When it came to tactics, he may have been a nitwit, but on the subject of comfortable knits, he had his wits about him. So, here's to his lordship, and to these five variations on the classic garment to which his name was given.

L.L. Bean

offers this men's cotton sweater in nine colors. $39.50 ($44.50 in tall sizes); www.llbean.com [2]

Credit: Mark Wagoner

This one-size "Friends" cardigan is from Sweaterstop.com, which donates a percentage of its profits to the Heifer Project. $115; www.sweaterstop.com [3]

This man's cardigan from J. Crew is a 5-gauge knit with front pockets and a hidden zipper. $78 This nubby boucle cardigan from Patagonia is wild and woolly. $98

Owen Edwards is a contributing editor for Edutopia and Smithsonian magazines.