Fair Isle is one of those patterns that can go wrong in both directions at once. Too bold and it reads as fancy dress. Too muted and you’ve lost the whole point. The cardigan format is where it tends to work best for actual wearing rather than occasion dressing, because you can layer it, leave it open, throw it over a shirt collar without committing to a full statement. We’ve been looking specifically at versions where the colourwork is tight and considered, the yarn has enough weight to hold its structure, and the fit doesn’t collapse into something shapeless after two washes. The ones that fail tend to do so on exactly those three counts. We’re also interested in pieces where the palette feels like it was arrived at deliberately rather than by committee. These cardigans sit in that useful middle ground between a plain knit and something you have to dress around. They justify the hanger space.