The cart is empty
Notes on a four-month process — from the brushed cashmere mills of Inner Mongolia to the wash that gives every piece its softness.
Each spring our cashmere knits begin with a fibre that has been combed (not shorn) from goats grazing the high steppe of Alashan. The combing happens once a year, in late April, before the goats fully shed their winter coat — and the harvest from a single goat fills, on average, the front of one of our crewneck jumpers.
The mill
From the steppe, the fibres travel to a small dehairing mill outside Erdos, run by three brothers we have worked with for sixteen years. They sort by hand. The longer fibres go to outerwear, the medium fibres to crewnecks, and the shorter ones to scarves and accessories — a hierarchy you can read in the price.
The wash
What gives a Maison Vessel cashmere its hand is the wash. Twice — once after spinning, once after knitting — the yarn is plunged in cold mountain water and gently agitated for thirty hours. Most knitwear is washed for two. The result is a piece that arrives in your hands already soft, already broken in, already yours.
What this season brings
The Sable Crewneck returns this spring in three new colours — Bone, Fawn, and Moss — and joins a new long-sleeve rib that we have been refining for two years.