Just picking up on the 'Current Cravings' thread here, in which my favourite Alan Paine is being discussed, together with shawl cardigans.  I know that cardigans were discussed last year, but I can't help feeling that there's something extra-special about them in terms of Ivy style.  They certainly don't go with 'anything', but they go with enough to make having several worthwhile.  I particularly like that deep red example Alex posted. 

Expensive knitwear is a way of 'showing out' in the most subtle and satisfying way possible.  It has to be worn, though, not slung around the shoulders like a ponce or knotted around the waist schoolboy-style.  Some of mine looks pretty well worn in now, particularly this workhorse Pendelton cardie I'm currently wearing.  Most luxurious is my Brooks English-made cashmere. 

Any charity shop I go into, I have to go through the knitwear first.  In York last year I went into a secondhand shop stuffed with Pringle.  An incredibly variable label, ranging from the quite acceptable to the positively gruesome, with frigging golfers and golf clubs all over them!  Lyle and Scott I have grown to particularly dislike.  Hodgson and Ashworth don't seem too bad; just unexciting.  Smedley merino is still rather nice. 

Anyone have any 'all-time favourites'?