Screenshot : FatFace

It has come to my attention that this sweater, sold by British retailer FatFace for $82 American dollars, is being noticed not for its cozy warmth or its subtle color palette, but for the very curious pattern traversing the chest area. Are those breasts?




News of this sweater reached me via the Guardian, and after careful consideration, I almost agree with their assessment. Up close, the sweater’s pattern suggests a Fair Isle designer’s wildest hallucination— a deviation from the traditional patterns in exchange for something a little more avant-garde. If you squint and look at the little red splotches, they sort of look like a crude rendition of the state of Texas, as if drawn from memory by someone who has looked at a map once. It’s not quite a breast, but it is breastish—a suggestion, a whisper, a soupçon. It’s subtle enough to pass muster through whatever stages of inspection mass-market knitwear endures before it hits retailers, but not subtle enough to escape the notice of consumers.

From a distance, though, the sweater reveals its true nature. Those aren’t breasts, and they certainly aren’t boobs; the former implies realism and the latter, a complete lack of understanding of female anatomy. What it is, my friends, is a titty.