I have crocheted for years and years (and years, but I don’t like to admit to that last group). Crochet has always been fashion driven—it was popularized to glam up ladies dresses with lacy goodness—but recently it seems to be taking over the runways from Milan to Paris to New York.
Now, I am not a big follower of fashion, as a brief glance at my wardrobe would attest. My daughter keeps threatening to put me on one of those television makeover shows, although could you imagine the bleeping if the host tried to throw out one of my crocheted tops? I suspect I would not be ladylike about that at all. But I do love paging through the fashion magazines—you know, the ones that are about the size of the New York phone book—and checking out all of the crochet.
Some of it is more than a little odd. I know fashion design is supposed to be pushing the envelope, but some of these things should have stayed sealed up. And I just know that thirty years from now, knitters will be still be mocking us—not for the granny-square shrink tops from the ’70s but for some of the asymmetrical, oversized, randomly fitted “fashion” that is strolling down the catwalk today. And it won’t be the average, everyday crocheter who will have been responsible for these atrocities; it will be a big-name designer.
Not that it’s all awful, by any means. There are some Seventh Avenue designers doing wonders with crocheted lace and beautifully tailored pieces that fit like a dream. Sometimes when I want a laugh, though, I stop in at a high-end store and look at the prices on a crocheted jacket—they can run into the thousands of dollars. I laugh not because I don’t think they are worth that—we all know the amount of time a beautifully finished garment can take so a few thousand dollars seems about right to me—but can you imagine what would happen if any of the thousands of crocheters who sell finished items tried to get those types of prices? There would be a panic in the shops! Because something tells me the maker of that sweater doesn’t get nearly as much money as the person whose name is on the label.
Actually, as fashion styles trickle down through the price points, what bothers me is not the $3,000 sweater at Neiman Marcus but the $15 poncho at Target. Whoever made that crocheted garment, and if it is completely crocheted it was definitely a person not a machine, didn’t get paid nearly enough money for her work. I understand that the cost of living in whatever country she lives in is not the same as in the United States, but she probably got an hourly rate that we could pay with pocket change. If we train consumers to shop a discount store for crocheted fashion, then when they run across someone selling a few pieces for a fair rate, the customers think they are overpriced.
Anyway, if fashion history tells us anything, it is that no one trend lasts for too long. If you like crocheting garments for family and friends to wear, quick, do some nowwhile they are still in style. I have crocheted when it was in style and I have crocheted when it wasn’t, so I know that we have to take advantage of our current stylistic cachet while it lasts. In a few years, only the crocheters will be wearing crocheted garments.