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A cardigan is a sweater that opens down the front, usually with buttons. Everything else follows from that one change. It layers over a shirt collar without crushing it, it can be worn open or closed, and it comes off without disturbing anything underneath. A pullover sweater is warmer at the chest and cleaner under a jacket. Picture the two on a hanger. Same yarn, same gauge, same color. The pullover hangs as one closed shape. The cardigan hangs in two panels that swing apart, and that gap is the whole difference. Is a cardigan the same as a sweater?...

Alpaca and merino are both fine animal fibers, but they behave differently once they're knitted. Alpaca is warmer for its weight, silky rather than springy, and has no lanolin. Merino is usually finer, crimped and elastic, so it holds its shape and sits comfortably against skin. For a sweater worn most days, merino wins. For a scarf or hat, alpaca earns its place. We knit both, and the choice rarely comes down to which fiber is better. It comes down to what the garment has to do between October and March. The fibers up close Start with the animal. Merino...

The hard case is not the man who wants nothing. It is the man who has already bought the reasonable version of everything he needs, in the color he wears, in the size he takes. Every obvious gift is a slightly worse copy of something already in his wardrobe. What to give a man who buys his own clothes Give one thing he would not buy for himself, in a material he would not choose at his own price, that he will use weekly. Accessories and knitwear work because most men under-buy both. Avoid duplicating a category he has already...

Corduroy gets described as a winter fabric and left there. It is a construction, and the construction is unusual enough that knowing it changes which pair you buy. What corduroy is Corduroy is a pile fabric with raised cords running the length of the cloth. Extra weft yarns are woven in, floated over the base weave, then cut and brushed so they stand up as velvet-like ridges. The channels between the ridges are the wales. Everything people notice about corduroy, the warmth, the depth of color, the way it wears, comes from that cut pile. Wale count, and what it...