A Letter From Vivian: The Junella
A letter from the founder
A cardigan in one color is a cardigan you already own. This one is two, and the order they come in is the whole point.
On the six things that made me choose the Junella, why the pale half is at the top and not the bottom, and why it is $59.95 for our twentieth year.
I am Vivian, and I opened this boutique twenty years ago with one idea: that a woman should not have to choose between comfortable and beautiful.
September is the month the cardigan comes back out, and it is the month I watch a woman settle. She wants something to put over a tee for the cool part of the morning. So she buys one, and it is grey, or oatmeal, or navy — because those are what is on the rail, and because somebody told her a long time ago that one plain color was the safe choice.
There are two on offer and she owns them both. The plain one, which is safe and which nobody has ever once remarked on. And the loud one she tried the year before last, which was a single strong color from the collar to the hem, and which wore her rather than the other way about.
Nobody offers her the third thing: a cardigan that is doing something, and is still quiet in the place it needs to be quiet.
I never accepted that a woman had to choose.
The Junella is my answer, and the whole of it is in the order. Cream with small black dots across the top. Mustard from the waist down. Pale and patterned up at the face, the strong color further away from it. There were six things I would not do without.
The pale half is at the top, and that is not an accident
Turn it upside down in your head for a moment — mustard across the shoulders, cream and dots below the waist — and you will see immediately why it would not work. A strong color up beside the face is a decision you have to be in the mood for, and most mornings a woman is not. Here the cream and the small dots sit where they are seen first, and the mustard does its work lower down, where it lifts the whole thing without ever being the thing you look at. The order is the design.
“The mustard yellow is cheerful without feeling too bright. I wear it with jeans and a white tank and always feel put together.”
Marsha G., Columbus“The polka dots give it just enough personality to make a simple outfit interesting. It feels playful without looking too young.”
Annette P., WilmingtonChunky wooden buttons, and they are meant to show
Almost every cardigan of this kind is finished with small plastic buttons dyed to match the knit, so that they disappear. That is a decision made to save money and then explained as taste. These are chunky wooden ones, dark against the cream, and they run right down the front where you cannot miss them. It is the difference between a garment that was finished and one that was merely closed — and it is why the Junella still looks like something when you wear it hanging open, which is how most women will wear it.
“The wooden buttons are such a nice touch. I usually leave mine open, but it looks equally good buttoned on cooler mornings.”
Vicki S., Des MoinesIt stops at the hip
A long cardigan is the safe recommendation and it is often the wrong one. Past a certain length a cardigan stops being a layer and becomes a shape of its own, and a woman ends up inside a column of knitwear with her jeans somewhere underneath it. This one is hip-length. It finishes where your jeans begin, which means the jeans are still part of the outfit and you are still a person with a waist rather than a rectangle in a nice color.
“It sits right around my hips, which works especially well with jeans. I don’t feel swallowed up the way I do in longer cardigans.”
Belinda R., ChattanoogaSlightly oversized, on purpose
Relaxed and a little oversized, which is a phrase that has been ruined by shops using it to mean shapeless. It is not the same thing. Oversized means there is room through the middle so nothing pulls when you sit down and nothing clings where you would rather it did not. Shapeless means nobody cut a pattern. The Junella has room in it and still has a front and a shoulder, and you can tell within about four seconds of putting it on which of the two you have got.
“I like the slightly oversized fit because it gives me room through the middle without looking sloppy or bulky.”
Judith A., LexingtonWarm at eight, and still fine at two
This is the whole job of a September cardigan and most of them only manage half of it. It has to be warm enough at eight in the morning when you are standing on the porch with a coffee, and it has to not become a problem by the middle of the afternoon when the sun has come round. The knit here is soft and breathable rather than dense, so it is a layer you leave on rather than one you end up carrying over an arm from noon onward.
“The fabric feels soft against my arms and has enough warmth for a cool morning without becoming uncomfortable later in the day.”
Joan C., Grand RapidsS through 5XL, every one the same price
Eight sizes, from a small all the way to a 5XL, and not a cent of difference between them. I will say plainly why that matters to me. A cheerful cardigan is exactly the sort of thing that gets made in three sizes and then quietly withheld from everybody else, as though a woman past a certain measurement is supposed to want only navy. I have never accepted that either, and this is one of only two things in the shop that runs the whole way up.
“I’ve worn this to coffee, errands, and lunch with friends. The color and dots make it feel special, but it’s still very easy to wear.”
Renee L., RoanokeThe Junella, against the cardigan on the back of your chair
| The usual cardigan | The Junella | |
|---|---|---|
| Color | One flat shade, collar to hem | Two, split at the waist |
| At the face | Whatever color the whole thing is | Cream, with small dots |
| Buttons | Plastic, dyed to disappear | Chunky wooden, and they show |
| Length | Long — a column of knitwear | Hip-length, stops at the jeans |
| Fit | Shapeless, and called relaxed | Room through the middle, still cut |
| Sizing | Stops at XL, if you are lucky | S through 5XL, one price |
I refuse to sell a woman a cardigan that nobody will ever mention to her. That is the whole reason the Junella is in the shop.
Why we’re clearing them now
The Junella came in at $179.95. Knitting a garment in two colors means the panels have to be worked and joined rather than run off in one piece, and that is slow, and slow is what the original number was paying for. But the shop turns twenty this year, and my daughter Pearl is beside me at the counter most days now, which is not something I let myself count on in 2006. We wanted to mark it by handing something back to the women who kept our door open, so it is going out at a third of what it was.
And I would rather do it this week than in six. A cardigan is a September garment above everything else — it is for the mornings we are having right now, the ones that are cool at eight and perfectly lovely by lunchtime. Buy it in the middle of October and you are already reaching past it for a coat.
★★★★★4.8 out of 5 — from 3,524+ reviews
$179.95$59.95
20th Anniversary Sale — Save 67%
- Cream with black dots above, mustard below
- Chunky wooden buttons down the front
- Hip-length — it stops where your jeans start
- Relaxed and slightly oversized, with room through the middle
- Soft and breathable — warm at eight, fine at two
- Sizes S, M, L, XL, 2XL, 3XL, 4XL, 5XL · one price
- Free UPS shipping · 30-day money-back guarantee
Every size the same price · while sizes last
There is a particular thing a woman does with a cardigan that she does with nothing else in the shop. She does not hold it up. She puts it straight on, over whatever she walked in wearing, and then looks down at herself before she ever looks at the mirror.
She is checking whether it goes with what she already had on that morning. Because that is the actual test for a cardigan, and it is the one nearly all of them fail.
This one passes. Go and find your size.
— Vivian · Vivian & Pearl Newport
SEE THE JUNELLA — $59.95 →This is a personal letter from the founder of Vivian & Pearl Newport. Customer reviews are quoted as written. · US family brand since 2006 · Free UPS shipping · 30-day money-back guarantee.