The cotton cardigan is one of those pieces that solves a problem most men don’t realise they have until they own one. Too warm for a knit, too cool for just a shirt, that particular in between temperature that catches you out in spring and catches you out again in September. A well made cotton cardigan lives there permanently and looks good doing it. The key things we’ve been looking at are weight, button quality, and whether the fit actually works over a collar without pulling across the shoulders. Merino gets more attention but cotton has real advantages here. It breathes properly, holds its shape through washing, and softens in a way that feels earned rather than manufactured. A good one becomes the thing you reach for without thinking. The ones we’ve put together here work over a plain tee as well as they do over an Oxford cloth shirt. Some pieces just fit naturally into a wardrobe. These are those pieces.