Fur coats are made of mink, rabbit and stuff. Suede is dead cows. The hallucinogenic knitwear made by Elyse Allen and Jim Drain, however, is composed of nothing but skinned Muppets and decapitated stuffed animals.

Using vivid and optically challenging colors and patterns, these two Rhode Island School of Design graduates (Lightning Bolt and all that) make the most inventive sweaters, bodysuits, blankets and leg warmers ever seen. The Happy Banana vibe (for that is the mantle under which they work) lies in a cool land of pot smoke, Sid and Marty Krofft puppets, babbling brooks and green grassy fields.

“We started working together on Thanksgiving Day 2001, sometime around eight p.m. No joke,” says Jim, who has been knitting on his own for some time and with some infamy. A founding member of the art/music juggernaut known as Forcefield, he is the one who designs and makes all of the crochet-alien suits they wear in their videos and performances (remember our Photo Issue?). Basically, he is to knitwear what Albert Ayler was to jazz or Martha Stewart is to homemaking: a total revolutionary. “Even before we started working together, Elyse taught me everything I know about knitting,” explains Jim, “Three summers ago she left for work everyday and I would stay in her air-conditioned apartment and teach myself how to knit. Then she would come home and show me what I did wrong.”

Happy Banana textiles courtesy of Parlour Projects.