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These joyful Next cardigans will all banish January blues, and there's four to choose, from £39

Store all your plain cardigans, and wear one of these bright, colourful, mood-enhancing ones instead

By Melanie RickeyPublished: 12 January 2026

When I first saw this pale blue cropped cardigan decorated with 3D knitted tulips, I thought, “aah, what a cute cardigan for a little girl,” so convinced was I that it was from the children’s department.

But, no. This is a grown-up cardigan in sizes all the way up to 2XL, and it’s one of four unapologetically childlike, and yet unexpectedly chic and joyful cardigans Next has included in their January collection.

The others include a fuzzy pistachio green pull-on cardigan emblazoned with lemons, one in ballerina pink (coming online in one week) and a zip front cropped cardigan with a pastoral scene, dotted with a few fluffy sheep for good measure.

All four would sit happily in the wardrobe of a six-year-old girl, and yet here they are looking like just the thing to uplift our everyday jeans, boots and jumper rotation and transform our middle-of-January mood. And if you're a fan of Traitor contestant Jade Scott's Hope Macauley 'Colossal Colorful Knit Cardigan' these knits bring that fiesty mood, at a fraction of the price.

These are no mere mood lifters though, and should not be treated exclusively as such, either. When I interrogated their longevity, I noticed their most useful quality lies in their shape. They sit close to the waistline. And if there is one thing I can confidently say about the jacket shape we will all be wearing out and about once spring arrives, it’s that they will be cut closer to the body and end just above the hipbone.

Starting with a cropped, pull-on cardigan puts us firmly on the nursery slopes for this change. Call it the Chanel effect, the brands’ new designer Matthieu Blazy championed a sliced-to-the-waist tailored jacket style for his debut collection last October, and you can expect to see many more cropped styles as we move further into 2026.

In the meantime, buying a joyful, childlike cropped cardigan is the way forward. It will fill you with nostalgia, cheer you (and those who see you wearing it) right up, and serve you for the year ahead and more.