Yes, this is a newsletter about Elphaba's sex cardigan

A few weeks ago, I asked a friend if she had noticed any prominent cinematic knits from the past year in an attempt to build a backlog of Knitwear of the Week picks and break the hiatus that’s settled over this newsletter since April.

Due to the whole still-unemployment thing, I haven’t gone to the movie theater as often as I’d like this year—and as someone who used to have an Alamo Season Pass membership, I went to the movie theater a lot—so I haven’t seen a ton of stuff theatrically. And I’m, once again, very burnt out, so often times I haven’t kept totally up to pace with all the buzzy shows. The only film that came to mind was The Ballad of Wallis Island, a lovely Sundance dramedy I saw in March about a lonely, twice-over lottery winner (Tim Key) who invites his estranged favorite folk duo (Tom Basden and Carey Mulligan) to a remote island off the coast of Wales to reunite and play a private concert for him. My friend could only think of On Swift Horses, another small film that premiered at TIFF instead of Sundance. And the only newish title that a quick search on social media suggested was something from The Summer I Turned Pretty, which I haven’t seen but I know has been very popular online this year.

As you’ll see later in this newsletter, I went with an older option I encountered recently for this issue’s KotW instead. I’ll probably do the same thing for the next update, which is the thing I meant to break this current hiatus¹ with. Hopefully that will arrive some time this month, but we’ll see how that plays out.

But then Wicked: For Good went and solved both of my conundrums after Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) put on a ratty gray duster cardigan² (complete with none of the ends woven in) ahead of a song in which Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey) very much wanted to take it off. (Multiple women at my screening screamed and cheered.)

(Warning: Spoilers for Wicked: For Good to follow.)

It wasn’t that what’s been dubbed as “Elphaba’s sex cardigan” was a complete shock to the stratosphere. I think I first encountered it last month when @sansbreadstix made a joke on Twitter about “The concept of woodland creatures knitting up a lingerie set for elphaba” after sharing a photo of a mannequin wearing the cardigan and some lingerie. Which, per some old-fashioned internet sleuthing, appeared to first show up in a special issue of PEOPLE?

But let’s take a step back:

• Both Wicked films take place in an Oz where the Cowardly Lion speaking isn’t an anomaly. All animals have the ability to talk, even if the Wizard’s (Jeff Goldblum) fascist regime wants them to stop; Dr. Dillamond (Peter Dinklage), Elphaba’s goat professor, even pours and drinks tea in the first film. They could totally make Elphaba something if they wanted to or she asked nicely.

• I want to pause the step back even more because I need you to appreciate Dillamond rocking this lounge sweater in the first Wicked film that I have, no joke, been thinking about since I saw it last year.

• Glinda (Ariana Grande) might get to wear all of the fancy tiaras and frilly ballgowns, but if the animals are knitting it, Elphaba is the real Disney Princess of Oz, even before Fiyero (an actual prince) comes into the picture.

• If the animals didn’t make it, did Elphaba knit this duster cardigan to destress while fighting against the Wizard?

• If not hand-knitted, would Elphaba have access to Ozian Couture? Would it have been a gift (or a “gift” in the same way that the hat was) from Glinda?

• I’ll leave you with the other knitted top I’ve been thinking about since last November.

Now back to our regularly scheduled fiber arts analysis.

Let me be clear: Wicked: For Good is not a good movie. It drags, character motivations are rushed despite the over two-hour runtime, it spends the whole movie attempting to reach somewhere close to the highs of “Defying Gravity” in Part 1 and fails, the two original songs added as part of an attempt to pad a thinner Act II and win a Best Original Song Oscar are completely unmemorable—and besides, those songs will probably lose to “Golden” from KPop Demon Hunters. (Or “I Lied To You” from Sinners.) While possibly more of an unpopular opinion, I found the choice to not show Dorothy’s (Bethany Weaver) face distracting as hell, even if she’s not much of a character in the film.

And I don’t care how “realistic” Chu and the other filmmakers were trying to make the very magical world of Oz, the desaturated lighting choices continue to be atrocious and an affront to all of the artists working behind the scenes whose work doesn’t get the showcase it deserves.

But I still had some fun. “As Long As You’re Mine,” “No Good Deed,” and “For Good” are all great. But I also came out on the other side as being pro-Sex Cardigan. (I even took notes on a napkin!) And for all of the fantastical clothing from costume designer Paul Tazewell—who literally won an Oscar for working on the first Wicked film—it’s kind of amazing that this is the breakout costume of For Good.

Here’s what Wicked: For Good screenwriter Winnie Holzman had to say about it in an interview with Variety’s Jazz Tangcay:

Would I ever wear something like this? Absolutely not. The unwoven ends would drive me up a wall and the wool looks itchy and very uncomfortable. I’d probably also view a duster cardigan the same way I view a bathrobe: Too annoying to deal with because of constantly readjusting the ties or where the opening fell on my body.

But I can respect the choice. For one, Elphaba’s woodsy digs is an open layout with no windows and no visible insulation. Even before Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh) breaks out a cyclone to assassinate Nessarose (Marissa Bode) with a Kansan house, it probably got very chilly at night. This is regardless of whether Elphaba padded the space with magic to keep the heat in. Who knows, maybe she runs cold—so cold that the PG-friendly post-coital glow still has her reaching for that cardigan.

But the duster cardigan is probably also something of a piece of comfort clothing. Comfort after a long day of rebellion stirring and wedding crashing (my PJs often look the worse for wear after wearing them down for years), or one last piece of metaphorical armor after the hot Winkie prince you’ve been crushing on comes into your homely abode, takes off your signature black cape, and sees a more vulnerable side of you. Kind of like: Oh, you might think I’m beautiful, but do you still think I’m beautiful after seeing me wearing this cardigan that’s literally falling apart at the seams? Also, I may or may not be falling a bit apart too?

Fiyero insisted that he wasn’t lying, a refrain Elphaba throws back at him when she sees his transformation into the Scarecrow at the end of the film. But having someone come into your home, see you wearing the (likely) ugliest piece of clothing you own, and going, yes, you’re beautiful and I still want you? That’s love. (And I’d like to imagine that, for the Gelphie shippers, Glinda would do the same.)

Long live Elphaba’s Sex Cardigan, hopefully on the shoulders of a lot of motivated knitters. Hopefully she brought it along in whatever bag she packed to flee Oz for good.

UPDATE, Dec. 4, 2025: Since publishing this newsletter, more folks behind Wicked: For Good have weighed in on Elphaba’s sex cardigan, rooting the specific garment choice as a character-driven one. Which, if you’ve gotten this far, I more or less surmised (even if the conclusions differ).

Speaking to NPR, Tazewell shot down our collective mental image of a bunch of animals making the cardigan for Elphaba a la Disney-era Cinderella by confirming that Elphaba made it herself.

And, according to Deadline, Erivo wanted to show a different and more vulnerable side of Elphaba and remove her armor during the scene where she wears the cardigan.

Knitwear of the Week

Knit: An Aztec-style cardigan featuring green, red, gold, and gray blocks, paired with a ruffled white blouse. The correct number of layers for operating the front desk at the Twin Peaks Sheriff’s Department where the front door opens a whole bunch.

Worn By: Lucy Moran (Kimmy Robertson), the resident Sweater Queen of Twin Peaks, Washington³ , in Twin Peaks season 2.

Costume Designer: Sara Markowitz

After my partner and I worked our way through every piece of knitwear in The Americans—easily the Sweater Show of the 2010s—we started what would ultimately be the Sweater Show of the early 1990s: Twin Peaks. It’s been on my radar for well over a decade, ever since I started obsessing over Lost as a teenager and learned that Twin Peaks was a foundational text and influence for it. But it was only this year that I finally got around to the TV show to which Lost probably owes its biggest debt.

I maybe understood half of it, a number that decreased dramatically once my partner and I put on Twin Peaks: The Return. But it was almost always a treat to be thrust into this weird little town that feels much smaller than the stated population would have you believe and we easily fell in love with FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) and the many, many weirdos who populated Twin Peaks. But given the show’s setting of a fictional town being so close to the Canadian border (so close that the show featured an international cocaine smuggling ring!), it was no surprise that Twin Peaks, Washington turned out to be such a sweater haven.

Just look at the 118(!) sweaters ranked by The Cut in 2014, which only includes the original series because The Return didn’t yet exist. Or Knit Peaks on Tumblr. And while Audrey Horne (Sherilyn Fenn) has many of the show’s great knits, I had to give the edge to Lucy Moran’s comfy chic. Plus: There’s an entire love letter to Lucy’s sweaters that does include all of her The Return knits; there are so, so many, and they’re all wonderful.

Lucy, please give me all of your store recs STAT.

If you want to nominate your own candidate for Knitwear of the Week, check out the guidelines here. If you’ve got one, comment below or email me at [email protected] with your pick!

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1  I still owe y’all a Murder, She Wrote post, I haven’t forgotten about that! And so many other posts I’ve been putting off.

2  For everyone doing e-commerce cardigan roundups, Elphaba is wearing a duster cardigan, not just a cardigan. The terminology matters, and so does the length—you can’t just put any gray knitted piece that opens up and only goes down to your hip on a listicle and call it a day!

3  And she faced stiff competition for the title, too.