About five years ago, I bought a sweater. I liked the sweater, I wore the sweater, I forgot about the sweater. (If this kind of thing hasn’t happened to you at least once, congratulations—you own an appropriate amount of clothing.) A year later, I started wearing it again, this time with an almost religious devotion. It became one of my favorite sweaters ever. The crewneck collar was the ideal amount of loose, the body was the right amount of cropped, and the cotton yarn was dense but soft, features only enhanced by intentionally sloppy ribbing that made me want to retire every other sweater I owned.

Ever since I rediscovered it, it’s been an indispensable part of my rotation—a year-round go-to that’s literally wearing thin. The brand that made it no longer exists, and I’ve searched every secondhand app for another one, to no avail. I’m pretty decent at finding these things, but haven’t encountered shit that even resembles it. No protege, no heir apparent, nada.

The chunky ribbed collar…

Reed Nelson

…and a close-up of the cuffs that caught my eye.

Reed Nelson

And then, suddenly, I encountered exactly that—for under $100, no less, and in the last place I would’ve checked: the Gap women’s section. I bought the brand’s Relaxed Cotton Sweater a couple of weeks ago and have worn it—hard, like a T-shirt—ever since. Is it a dead ringer for the sweater that haunted my dreams? Not really, but it’s so good that I can stop looking for it, and probably hit the ‘pause’ button on my sweater alerts for the foreseeable future.

It’s rib-stitched from one of the softest cotton yarns I’ve ever felt, with dropped shoulders and a boxy fit. The ribbing at the collar is chunky and loose, though it’s the slightly longer, looser ribbing at the cuffs and hems that first caught my eye. The length sits between my belly-button and hip bones—I tried very hard to find another way to phrase that—which doesn’t quite qualify as capital-C Cropped, but isn’t an entirely inaccurate way to describe it.

Reed Nelson

Reed Nelson

Here’s where I’ll tell on myself a bit, though: if you’re tall, this probably isn’t your sweater. I’m 5’9″ and bought an XL, and the range of sizes only extends one further. But—and this is crucial—there’s no shortage of alternatives designed to fit a little cropped on taller guys, while the options for guys under 6″, of which I’m told there are many, are substantially more limited.

If your height falls squarely into the latter category (no matter what your Hinge profile says), put those perfectly average limbs to good use and hightail it to your local Gap—or, y’know, its website—pronto. As my browser history can attest, a good sweater is hard to come buy, and a great one rarely comes this cheap.