Aberdeen, Washington State. It is February 20, 1967 and from Donald Leland Cobain (mechanic) and Wendy Elizabeth Fradenburg (secretary/bartender) was born Kurt Donald Cobain. This means that today, the frontman of Nirvana, would have turned 53 years old and we have chosen to celebrate him in a different way, but let’s put it all in context.
It’s October 22, 1990, in a place now called “El Corazon” but at the time it was “The Off Ramp“, Mooky Blaylock are playing.
Daron Oshay “Mooky” Blaylock was a player of the New Jersey Nets in the NBA, Jeff Ament bassist of the band, he chose this name because he was passionate about our “cards”, trading cards in the U.S. and often found himself in his pocket as a “double” just the card of the Nets player and decided that that was the name of the band. Subsequently, the record companies of Epic Records, advised to change the name for legal issues so there will be a new name to choose, that name will be Pearl Jam.
But Pearl Jam needed a frontman and from California comes a tier tip: Red Hot Chili Peppers report a former San Diego gas station attendant who loves baseball and sings pretty good, Eddie Vedder. He’s the one who’s running the show that night.
In that same club, one month later on November 25th, Nirvana, who already had a frontman, perform in the same place and it’s that boy born in Aberdeen who is named Kurt Donald Cobain.
Kurt will forever revolutionize music and fashion in a radical and completely involuntary way.
The women’s glasses, the personalized Converse from pen writings of all kinds, the torn jeans, striped long sleeves, the painted nails are just some of the examples that will influence the aesthetics of millions of boys around the world who did not feel represented in any kind of stereotype that fashion, music, and society had produced until then.
But if there is one garment that characterized the Nirvana frontman was without a doubt the cardigan, the real icon of grunge.
I think Kurt Cobain had a real obsession with button open sweaters. It’s amazing the amount and variety of cardigans shown, on stage, in promotional and private photos, in interviews.
But perhaps the most incredible story is related to his most famous cardigan.
It was November 18, 1993, when Nirvana performed what is perhaps one of the most iconic performances in music history, MTV Unplugged in New York. The recording of that acoustic concert was incredibly touching, Kurt was at ease, quiet and happy as very few times you’ve had the chance to see it and in fact he gave a fantastic and almost moving performance.
For the occasion, Cobain wore an olive green cardigan that has a long, deep and tormented history behind it.
After her death, Courtney Love gave it to their assistant and Frances Bean’s first nanny, Jackie Farry, who was forced to sell it to Julien’s Auctions after keeping it in a safe deposit box for two decades without ever washing it in order to pay for her cancer treatment.
In a first auction, the cardigan was priced at $137,500, almost €122,000 and bought by Garrett Kletjian, a race car team owner.
Composed of acrylic yarn, Lycra and mohair wool, it lacks a button (the penultimate of five), two pockets on the sides, a large stain on the right one where it seems that inside there was also a strange brown incrustation (chocolate or vomit is not known) and a cigarette burn. The sweater still has the label with a symbol: the image of a boat and a skier, symbol of the brand that produced the cardigan between 1960 and 1965, Manhattan Industries, a New Jersey company founded in 1800 and later acquired by Perry Ellis International.
Kletjian, a serious collector, has always tried to protect that sweater to the point of refusing the Louvre’s request to exhibit it.
After realizing that in reality that cardigan is a common good and that everyone should have the chance to see it at least once in their life, he decided to resell it.
On 26 October last year, Julien’s Auctions once again beat him by a record $334,000, the highest amount ever spent on a sweater to date.
