Maplewood Woman Knit Sweaters For New Mr. Rogers Movie: Report

MAPLEWOOD, NJ - Broadway costumer and Maplewood resident Yasemin Esmek took nine months to recreate the iconic cardigans worn by Tom Hanks in the new movie "Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood," based on the life of Fred Rogers, according to the NY Post.

Yasemin Esmek, 50, knitted all the sweaters Hanks sports in the film: re-creations of Mr. Rogers’ signature zip-up cardigans, which he wore for every episode of his show, including the bright red version housed at the Smithsonian, according to the report.

Esmek said in the report she wasn’t familiar with Mr. Rogers before she began knitting those cardigans but did a lot of research before she began work, including watching the 2018 documentary "Won't You Be My Neighbor."

"It made me cry,” she told the Post. “He was such a good guy.”

Rogers iconic sweaters have a long and storied history of their own. According to the Smithsonian, they were all made by his mother, Nancy McFeely Rogers, who knit the sweaters in a variety of colors, making a new one every Christmas. When she died in 1981, the supply of new handknit sweaters dried up.

There was a struggle to find a replacement.

In 1984, Rogers donated one of the sweaters knit by his mother to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.

Esmek, who made sweaters for Téa Leoni in “Madam Secretary” and for Ed Norton in “Motherless Brooklyn,” told the Post Hanks sent her some pictures with his autograph.

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