The cashmere I finally took care of

I had been buying cashmere sweaters for years and ruining them. The pattern was always the same. I would buy a beautiful sweater, wear it for a season or two, throw it in the washing machine because the laundry was easier that way, and the sweater would emerge felted, pilled, and somehow smaller. By the third or fourth wash the sweater was unwearable.

Cashmere is, I now understand, a fabric that requires care. The care is not difficult. It is just specific, and the specificity is what I had been ignoring for years.

The hand wash

Once a season, in the bathroom sink, with cold water and a small amount of mild detergent — the kind sold specifically for delicates, which is essentially diluted soap. The sweater goes into the water. I press it gently for a minute or two. I rinse it in fresh cold water until the rinse runs clear.

The whole wash takes about ten minutes per sweater. I do this for my three cashmere sweaters at the end of each season, before they go into storage.

The drying

On a towel, flat, away from sunlight, for about twenty-four hours. The sweater is rolled in the towel first to squeeze out most of the water — never wrung — then laid flat on a fresh dry towel and shaped gently by hand so that it dries in the right shape. I have a small wire-mesh drying rack that fits the kitchen table for this. The sweater is fully dry in a day.

The cedar

Cashmere is vulnerable to moths. The moths lay eggs in stored knitwear and the larvae eat the fibres. The cedar blocks I keep in the small cabinet where the sweaters live in summer repel the moths. The blocks need to be sanded lightly every few months to refresh the scent.

I have, since starting this, had no moth damage at all. Before, I had been losing sweaters to moths every other summer. The cedar blocks cost about ten euros and last for years.

The folding

Cashmere should be folded, not hung. The weight of a hung sweater stretches the shoulders and the body. I fold my sweaters in thirds — the bottom edge up to the shoulders, the sleeves folded in, the whole thing folded in half. The folded stack sits on a shelf in the cabinet. The sweaters keep their shape indefinitely.

What this has done

My three cashmere sweaters are now, respectively, eight, six, and four years old. All three of them look approximately as good as they looked the day I bought them. The slight pill that cashmere develops in normal wear is gone after each hand wash. The shape has not stretched. The fabric has not felted.

Cashmere is an investment garment when it is cared for. It is a disposable garment when it is not. The difference is twenty minutes of attention per sweater per season and a small set of supplies that cost almost nothing. The math, in the long run, is the most favourable I have found in clothing care.