Scarves

A scarf, in the Kashmiri sense, is a smaller meditation on the same patience that produces a shawl. The fleece arrives from the Changthangi goats of Ladakh, is hand-cleaned in Srinagar workshops, then drawn into yarn fine enough to pass through a ring. From there, weavers settle at pit looms for weeks at a time. Many of the pieces in this archive carry sozni work along their borders — a discipline we explore in the patience of Sozni embroidery — while others rely on the quiet character of the fibre itself, a subject covered in pashmina and cashmere compared. For those new to the material, our guide to cashmere grading may be a useful place to begin.