How to Care for Cashmere

Wash it, don’t dry-clean it

Dry-cleaning solvent strips the natural oils that make cashmere feel like cashmere. Twice a season is fine. Every month and you will feel the fibre go dry and start to pill in earnest.

Instead: cold water, a capful of a pH-neutral wool wash, fifteen minutes of soaking and no agitation at all. Press the water out against the side of the basin. Never wring.

Dry flat, always

Wet cashmere has no memory and a great deal of weight. Hang it and you will pull the shoulders into points that never come back. Lay it on a towel, reshape it with your hands, and leave it alone for a day.

On pilling

Pilling in the first month is a sign of long fibre relaxing, not of poor quality. Take a cashmere comb to it once, gently, and it will largely stop.