Sonth
Spring, and the colour work that comes with it. Undyed and sand grounds carrying paisley, blossom and the full kalamdar field.
The Threads of Qashmirè
Woven from the roof of the world.
Pure Changthangi pashmina, hand-spun and hand-woven in Kashmir. Each piece leaves the atelier numbered and signed by its weaver.
Hand-combed in LadakhSpun to twelve micronsTwo hundred hours on the loomWashed in spring waterNumbered by the atelierKashmir, by hand
New from the loom
The season's first descent.
Fresh weaves and new dye lots, arrived from the winter workshops of the valley.
The Collections
Three ways to wear the valley.
Each collection is woven in limited numbers and retired when its dye lot is spent.
Harud
Autumn in the valley: dark grounds, chinar turning, gold and ember laid over black and deep blue. The house at its most severe.
Slowness is not a delay. It is the pace at which the finest things consent to be made.
The Qashmirè Atelier, Srinagar
The Making
The Herd, 01 / 04
The Changthangi goats of Ladakh
At five thousand metres, winter obliges the Changthangi goat to grow an undercoat finer than any fibre made by machine. Each spring the herders comb, never shear, a few hundred grams of down from every animal.
The Thread, 02 / 04
Twelve microns, drawn by hand
In the old quarters of Srinagar the down is spun on wooden charkhas into a thread twelve microns fine, too delicate for any loom-house machinery, obedient only to practised fingers.
The Loom, 03 / 04
Two hundred hours at the loom
A single shawl crosses the loom for some two hundred hours. The weaver reads the pattern from memory, pick by pick, exactly as the generations before them read it.
The House, 04 / 04
The Qashmirè Atelier
Every finished piece returns to the atelier to be washed in spring water, dried in mountain sun, and numbered. It carries its weaver's mark, and from that day, it answers to your name.
The House of Qashmirè
Some things should take time.
Begin with the story of the valley, or begin with the piece you will keep for life.