Designed and knitted by maverick American designer Elizabeth Hawes, this sweater was worn by its owner when he went to the Whisky-a-Go-Go nightclub in Los Angeles. For the bon vivant ready to date, the message might seem to be an innocuous telephone number flaunted on the chest. But the indication is far ruder as the number, using dial equivalents to letters, becomes an obscenity.

I need to find out more about Elizabeth Hawes because this sweater is very clever. Also, call someone a maverick and you’ve immediately got my interest. Thanks to http://phonespell.org/ with no effort on my part I discovered the phone number spells “fuck you” and that my own phone numbers (home and cell) spell nothing.

Also notable are the intarsia and sweater construction. The back (or is it the front??? I really want to see what the other side of the sweater looks like too!) is knit side to side rather than bottom up, which means that when knitting the numbers are also knit side to side rather than bottom up (or top down). I’ve not seen intarsia or really any colorwork done like this, although maybe I just haven’t been looking close enough – this example makes it super obvious.