Kate Soo Hyun Kim
Year after year, the internet awaits for the first breath of autumn air to declare the beginning of sweater weather. With the quick-paced nature of the trend cycle, it is inevitable that a new contender for the internet’s ‘it sweater’ emerges. Off-white, thickly knit and slightly oversized, it’s been dubbed the “Rory Gilmore sweater.” Seen by social media users who regard it as the perfect garment for coffee-fueled study sessions and crisp autumn mornings, it’s a cozy, intellectual and effortlessly classic — the kind of sweater you’d wear while reading “Anna Karenina” in a coffee shop, annotating your thoughts in the margins. The sweater’s namesake wears the iconic piece during the “Gilmore Girls” pilot, and despite being described as a “mu-mu” — which it is very apparently not — in the episode, the sweater became synonymous with the “Rory Gilmore aesthetic,” cementing its place as a token for the aspiring Ivy League-er and future upper-middle-class East Coast elite. A Cosmopolitan article listing various dupes for the sweater quipped, “Unfortunately, Rory’s trust fund and Yale admission are not included.”
There’s just one problem: The sweater isn’t Irish.
What TikTok calls the “Rory Gilmore” sweater is actually the Aran jumper, a knit garment with thick cable stitch patterns which originates from the Aran Islands, a trio of islands off the West Coast of Ireland; it’s a knit with roots deep in Irish heritage and history, albeit ones that are also tangled in myths. And while Rory Gilmore did wear a chunky knit sweater, her version isn’t an authentic Aran knit. It’s most likely a sweater by the vintage brand, Purple Mountain Sweater Company, with the specific sweater being made in Ecuador, which is notably, not Ireland.
On Pinterest boards and Amazon listings, the distinction between heritage and aesthetic has disappeared — what was once a cultural symbol is now just another item in the endless churn of fast fashion. One TikTok creator lists a $54, polyester and acrylic blend “Rory Gilmore Sweater” on her Amazon storefront, touting the garment as “the” sweater from the show. The video, which currently has over 200,000 likes and over 1.2 million views, isn’t unique in its existence: there are thousands of TikToks, YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels that all rave about similar Amazon sweaters.
The Aran sweater has undergone a slow but total cultural strip, shifting from an ethnic garment tied to working-class Irish identity to a starlet staple to, now, a cozy academia must-have. Along the way, it has lost its meaning — folded into the realm of East Coast preppy style alongside plaid skirts, wool coats and leather-bound books.
How did we get here?
Casting on and Dropping Stitches: The History of the Aran Jumper
The Aran jumper is a product of the Aran Islands’ cottage and craftworks industries. Traditionally made from bainin wool — cream-colored wool that is specifically processed to preserve the lanolin content of the homespun thread — which gives the sweater water-resistant qualities. The warm, dry uniform was functional in a place where the most prominent industries were farming, fishing and the harvesting of kelp and seaweed, and where Northern European weather is anything but forgiving.
Alice Starmore, a Scottish author and textile designer writes in her 1997 book, “Aran Knitting,” the Aran sweater wasn’t actually a type, or even specific set of knits that constituted an article of clothing to become “Aran.” Rather, it was actually a colloquial term that emerged after Aran folk became inspired by Scottish fishermen’s sweaters — known today as Scottish ganseys in Ireland — and the intricate designs and weavings of their sweaters. In an account of his travels to the Aran Islands, James Millington Synge, a playwright and author, wrote “many of the younger men had adopted the usual fisherman’s jersey.” With time, the sweaters knitted by Aran crafts workers became “Aran jumpers” simply due to their geographical location.
The Aran Islands rose to prominence in Irish pop culture during the Gaelic Revival: a renewed interest in Irish nationalism, language and culture during the 19th century. The Islands were one of the last pockets of Ireland where the Irish language was still spoken and the untouched countryside intrigued city folk, who came to romanticize the traditional lifestyle and rugged, fantastical terrain. As Starmore writes, “the tale of the distant origins of Aran knitting fit so seamlessly into the general Aran mythscape that to deny it seems to deny the existence of the islands themselves.” One myth — popularized by Heinz Edgar Kiewe, an English-German author, suggests that the signature patterns are related to the Celtic swirls of the Gaelic religion. He even goes on to allude that a figure illustrated in the Book of Kells — an intricately decorated manuscript of the four Gospels of the New Testament from the ninth century — is wearing an Aran sweater. Online stores claim that Irish clans and families have passed down specific knit patterns through generations. The Aran Sweater Market — an Irish-based knitwear store — details on their “History of the Aran Sweater” page,
“On the Aran islands, sweater patterns were zealously guarded and kept within the same clan for generations. These Aran sweaters were often used to help identify bodies of fishermen washed up on the beach following an accident at sea. An official register of these historic patterns has been compiled and can be seen in the Aran Sweater Market store on Inis Mor.”
While photographs show Aran fisherman wearing these sweaters, there is no conclusive evidence that they were used to identify the bodies of lost fishermen. The earliest reference to the myth seems to be James Millington Synge’s 1904 play set in the Aran Islands, “Riders to the Sea,” in which a drowned man’s body is identified by a dropped stitch in the sock his sister knitted for him. It’s interesting how the story of the Aran jumper has taken on a life of its own. Distinct from the utilitarian needs of the islanders, the Aran jumper seems to identify more as a cultural artifact in the modern zeitgeist, with a narrative history that leads with commercial purpose.
Despite the commercialization of the mythos of the Aran jumper, even by Irish brands, at least some of the stories of the sweater seem to be of recent invention. This is not to say that the imbued Irish heritage is inauthentic.
The IRA and American Pop Culture
The Aran jumper’s use as a symbol of Irish unity and nationalism by Irish politicians made way for the jumper’s commercial success in the United States in the 1960s. In 1930, a woman named Muriel Gahan opened The Country Shop in Dublin, where she supported rural crafts workers — often women — by selling their wares for proper prices. By making countryside knitwear accessible in the capital city, Gahan is largely credited with the commercial conception of the “Aran Sweater,” when she commissioned it in 1932.
The 1930s also brought about an era of a newly-independent Ireland after the Irish War of Independence. The war, a guerilla campaign launched by the Irish Republican Army — IRA — to gain independence from the United Kingdom, culminated in the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, which granted independence to the Irish Free State — now known as Ireland — while allowing Northern Ireland, with its predominantly Protestant population, to remain part of the United Kingdom. This division reinforced religious and political tensions between the Irish Protestants, most of whom lived in the Northern parts of Ireland and wanted to stay part of the United Kingdom, and the Irish Catholic Republicans, who maintained that Northern Ireland was rightfully part of Ireland. The turbulent times post-partition gave rise to Irish efforts to bridge the gap between the country’s pre-conquest past and newly-liberated present.
The Aran sweater, deeply tied to Irish heritage, became a symbol of Irish nationalism during this period. Many Irish Catholic Republicans adopted the sweater as an emblem of their political stance, visually aligning themselves with the Irish Nationalist Party. The sweater came to represent a political stance: a strong belief in the unification of Northern Ireland to the Republic of Ireland.
Journalist Ed Curran recalls his first encounter with Martin McGuinness in 1972, describing him as “a young, curly-haired man, dressed in a soiled Aran sweater.” At the time, McGuinness was second in command of the IRA’s Derry Brigade and a prominent member of Sinn Féin, the republican political party. In a period of intense political violence and division, visual representation played a crucial role in public perception. For those labeled as terrorists by the British government, appearing relatable and authentically Irish was essential. The Aran sweater was a method of signaling one’s declaration of identity and allegiance to the unification.
The fashion reached American pop culture in 1961, when the Irish folk music group, The Clancy Brothers, appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show to an audience of forty million wearing, of course, Aran sweaters. The Clancy Brothers’ successful American debut cemented the Aran sweater’s place in the American consciousness as a stylish Irish garment. The sweater ushered in a new era of sentiments surrounding the Irish-American diaspora — one that traded anti-Irish sentiment and connections to the working class for cultural capital. The first Irish Catholic U.S President John F. Kennedy’s inauguration marked a turning point where being Irish was no longer a mark of exclusion but something to be celebrated, at least in certain circles. As Irish identity became more socially accepted in the U.S., so too did its most recognizable garment. The Aran sweater found itself draped over the shoulders of icons like Marilyn Monroe and Steve McQueen. The Kennedy era — and the family’s careful blending of Irish heritage with East Coast elite style — helped solidify this transformation, tying the Aran sweater to an image of effortless sophistication.
The mystique of the Aran sweater endures. What we define the garment to be, beyond its roots as a practical piece for Irish workers, has been reshaped by cultural narratives, political symbolism, and commercialization. Today, its symbolism continues to shift — no longer just a marker of Irish heritage, but also a fashion staple repurposed by new generations, from political revolutionaries to fictional Ivy League students. The Aran sweater remains a testament to the power of clothing as a storytelling device, woven with meanings that shift between tradition and reinvention — embraced both by Ivy League students as a symbol of heritage fashion and by Irish communities as a link to their cultural past.