performance fleece

Old Navy ‘Tweed Cardigan Jacket’ Not Chanel-Inspired

Photo: Old Navy

Tomorrow, the chain plans to add a “tweed cardigan jacket” to its lineup (priced at $40 and available for the next six weeks) and it’s not Chanel-inspired. In fact, Michael Ingram Jones, Old Navy’s global senior vice-president of design, told WWD: “I don’t think there was any intention for it to look like anything. We have seen a lot of great-looking women wearing tweed cardigan jackets.” And no one knows from whence they came!

Interestingly, the garment has been a part of Chanel’s vocabulary since the thirties, when Coco — a tweed fan — “used the Duke of Westminster’s factory and lined the jacket in fur to up the cost,” Time reported in a decade-old article. Karl Lagerfeld revised the piece multiple times; in the nineties, he “appeal[ed] to rappers like TLC’s late Lisa (Left Eye) Lopes, left, and Rozonda (Chilli) Thomas, who delight[ed] in the modern take on the Chanel jacket: the Windbreaker.”

Just keep it on the down low. Photo: Stephane Cardinale/Corbis

Not that either has anything to do with Old Navy, whose version will probably be lined in Performance Fleece and appeal to my mom.

Old Navy Tweed Jacket Not Chanel-Inspired