By KEVIN ZEBROSKI

It’s cold outside as of late. We all need to wear more sweaters.

Responsible for insulating the layer between outerwear and underwear with warm threads, knitwear is an important facet of any wardrobe. Knitwear is perfectly fine to wear a sweater sans coat in a time of less-extreme frigidity.

I have this one “Fair Isle” jumper, the kind with the bands of clashing colors running horizontally across the body, that I like to wear on its own because of its visual complexity.

Fair Isle sweaters come from Fair Isle, a small island north of Scotland.

My favorite type of sweater, or jumper as our European neighbors choose to say, is a cable knit, an Irish cable knit to be more geographically particular.

I prefer the “shawl” neck closure to the “crewneck” or “round neck” standard, because the excess material around the collar can serve as a wind shield or an emergency scarf. Shawl collared sweaters are the stereotypical “grandpa sweater,” the one with the overlapping and folding material around the back of the neck and a crisscross closure in the front.

For shawls done well, see Daniel Craig in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. His character, Mikael Blomkvist, survives the frozen north in ribbed cable knits and merino wool shawls.

The military tradition of cable knit crewnecks with shiny shoulder pauldrons is an interesting thing to look into, but I don’t personally see the appeal. Maybe the sartorial climates of the future will allow for the military jumper’s resurgence, but as of now I do not see it blending in outside of the occasional self-aware military-surplus raid-and-display.

Cardigans are also a thing.

Mr. Rogers wore a zippered cardigan, and you should not. He was a cool guy, but that sort of look is inimitable. Trying to ape Mr. Rogers will only bring you to a dark place.

You should turn to buttons instead, or maybe toggle closures. Some people would say that a man should never button his cardigan, but these people have probably never been cold before. Unless you are especially proud of your weather-sharpened nipples, there is no reason to avoid closing your sweater in fear of the elements.

Sweaters are the materialization of comfort, and to wear them for any other reason would be disingenuous folly. No one has ever looked well making himself suffer.

If you are feeling cold, put on something warm. That is all.