Natalie Joos Is Now Making Vintage-Inspired Knitwear
By Brooke Bobb
It was only a matter of time before Natalie Joos started designing clothes. The fashion consultant and street style star with a penchant for vintage has a CV that includes work with Craig McDean, Helmut Lang, and Phillip Lim. Not to mention she was an early blogger, who gained fame with her website, Tales of Endearment, when she launched it back in 2010. Now she’s venturing into knitwear with a see-now-buy-now line of effortless retro sweaters called JoosTricot, available through Instagram and soon, an ecommerce site. . Prices range from $325 to $595, and there are a total of three styles—turtleneck, long-sleeved crewneck, and short-sleeved crewneck—in several different color options that include burnt orange and olive green. “I can see girls like Alexa Chung and Tracee Ellis Ross wearing these,” Joos says of her new collection. “But is it bad to say I’m my own muse? I really made the sweaters to satisfy a personal need first.”
The first-time designer was on the hunt for the perfect fitted red sweater, and even on all of her outings to runway shows, studios, and stores around the world, she never found it. “I always find cute ones, especially at vintage fairs, but usually they’re itchy or ill fitting,” she explains. “In retail stores, I found only boring black or gray and usually they’re too expensive for an impulse buy—so that’s when my lightbulb went off.” That spark of inspiration led Joos on a much more in-depth design journey than she’d initially anticipated. As she says, “Knitwear is a complicated beast. We worked a year on perfecting the specs of each garment because I wanted them to be flattering, sexy, soft, and comfortable.” She adds, “Unlike most sweaters, mine have waists, so they contour the female body. They’re also dense and compact, so they can be worn without a bra!”
That ’70s-inspired, free-the-nipple fit seems like it will be a win-win formula for Joos. For further proof, one only needs to flip through the JoosTricot lookbook, which features a nostalgic beatnik babe wearing the soft sweaters, shot in pretty sepia tones by photographer Felix Wong. “I didn’t invent the wheel here,” Joos explains. “I’m taking an old idea and executing it with modern techniques and yarn.” If her track record of making old clothes look cool again is any indication, these covetable knits may have staying power.
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