9 Hidden-Gem Cashmere Brands from the US, France & Germany — Mostly Made in China
Beyond Italian and British cashmere, the global cashmere market includes various small brands from other European countries and the United States. Since these countries typically lack complete cashmere production industrial systems, most brands choose to manufacture in China.
Global cashmere brands can mainly be divided into Italian, British, and other regional systems. I have previously provided detailed introductions to 15 Italian Cashmere Brands Made in Italy and continue to update in the brands series. This issue will focus on cashmere brands from other European countries and the United States, with a brief mention of Japanese cashmere brands.
For British cashmere, I plan to write about them individually when I have some free time. Although I've written before about the decline of British manufacturing industries, even a thin camel is larger than a horse - they're still stronger than these non-textile manufacturing countries, with 8-9 old cashmere brands worth writing about.
The European niche cashmere brands introduced in this article are suitable for purchase when living in or traveling to those countries, especially when encountering suitable styles or discounts. These brands are only well-known in their home countries, with weaker international recognition and market development. These brands are difficult to purchase in China.
These brands are mostly high-value options aimed at the general public, with most adopting the "designed in Europe, produced in China" model. As a new generation of cashmere brands that emerged from the 1990s to the 2010s, their design styles are younger and more fashionable, while also paying more attention to social responsibility, environmental protection, sustainable development, and employee welfare. Although some brands may still have room for improvement in their actual actions, these concepts have become industry consensus. Most of these new-generation cashmere brands offer affordable basic products.
Below are brief introductions to the core characteristics of 9 brands, with further introductions by country in the following sections:
Le Kasha (France, 2016, Made in China/Inner Mongolia): The only brand with all organic cashmere, high quality, mid to high-end, all one-size oversized, more sophisticated fit. Although primarily women's wear (with some men's items), due to the one-size oversized cashmere sweaters, men under 180cm can also wear them well - we've all tried them.
Eric Bompard (France, 1985, Made in China/Inner Mongolia): Features men's, women's, children's wear, home goods, and cashmere accessories. A French national cashmere brand with high value-for-money, offering the full range of cashmere knitwear. Signature products include men's and women's sweaters, cardigans, and polo shirts with over 80% cashmere content. In my mind, it's similar to Lisa Yang - mid to low price, young and stylish designs and colors, with focus on environmental protection, animal and worker welfare, and cashmere ranging from thin to thick - a great mass-market cashmere brand. Since it's price-friendly cashmere, like Sunspel, I recommend buying the most expensive pieces in each category for more substantial cashmere and better quality. Wool and pure cotton fabric categories are not recommended.
Pellat-Finet (France, 1994, Made in London): Primarily makes provocative pattern designs like skulls and cannabis leaves on reversible, thicker cashmere hoodies (with a Barrie-like cashmere feel), also available in pure cotton. Men's cashmere, expensive (comparable to BC, LP luxury prices), too trendy (ugly) designs. Recent business difficulties, previous bankruptcy crisis, later sold to another young French mass-market brand.
Extreme Collection (Netherlands, 2016, Made in China/Hangzhou): Mid to low-end prices, average cashmere quality that looks somewhat scratchy. Like Le Kasha, only one size and most styles are unisex, suitable for various body types and age groups. All styles are knitted, with core products being long-sleeve cashmere pullovers and cardigans in basic styles. Other knitted categories not recommended as they're too thin and not core to the brand. Mainly in Dutch, Hong Kong, and Japanese markets. The founder has worked for decades as an agent for Hong Kong cashmere manufacturing factories and has close relationships with Hong Kong fashion capital.
FTC cashmere (Germany, 2003, Made in China/Hebei): Affordable Swiss-German, youthful men's and women's cashmere. Core products are basic cashmere sweaters for men and women (somewhat like a German version of Eric Bompard). Family business now beginning transition to the second generation. The parent company of Hong Tai cashmere brand also collaborates with this German/Swiss cashmere company for production help (which explains why when browsing Hong Tai, such an ordinary store with an ordinary name had some fashionable and youthful styles). They have their own goat farm on the Loess Plateau, focusing on controlling the entire industry chain and sustainable production.
Lisa Yang (Sweden, 2014, Made in China/Inner Mongolia): Founder originally based in Beijing, later established a men's and women's cashmere brand in Sweden. Styles are quite fashionable with multiple cashmere thicknesses and textures, at friendly prices. Due to the colder Nordic climate, most cashmere products are on the thicker side. Both men's and women's cashmere sweaters, cardigans, and cashmere pants are good (especially brushed and loop yarn styles), with styles leaning toward youthful and relaxed. Women's wear features many thicker cashmere vests and short sleeves, and is generally better-looking and more fashionable than men's wear, with more categories. Each season introduces some special colors like space blue and grass green that are rarely seen in cashmere categories, and these styles typically sell out quickly.
TSE Cashmere (USA, 1989, Made in China): Mid to high-end cashmere, emphasizing quality, with their own goat pastures and processing factories. Offers both men's and women's wear, specializing in knitted cashmere sweaters with special cashmere techniques. Their cashmere dresses and cardigans are worth buying. The knitwear series is good, but their design level for items like cashmere coats is still average.
God's True Cashmere (USA, 2019, Made in Italy): Makes only men's cashmere shirts. The most expensive cashmere brand in this article, with prices comparable to LP and BC luxury cashmere.
Sofia Cashmere (USA, 2005, Made in New York): Women's wear only, specializing in cashmere ponchos, shawls, scarves, and blankets, followed by knitted cashmere sweaters and wool-cashmere blend coats. An American mass-market cashmere brand with friendly prices. Also in the business of wool and cashmere production and spinning, importing raw cashmere from Inner and Outer Mongolia.
France
Le Kasha
Le Kasha provided cashmere fabric for Chanel 100 years ago, and 100 years later the brand was relaunched with Organic Cashmere as its core. It is the only cashmere brand I've seen where all cashmere products use the more expensive organic cashmere. N.Peal , Arch4, Lisa Yangand other environmentally conscious cashmere brands also promote Organic Cashmere, but only use it for a small portion of their products.
Although Le Kasha produces primarily women's clothing, due to the one-size-fits-all, oversized style, men under 180cm can also wear their cashmere sweaters quite well. Both Eddy and I have tried them. Some excessively oversized styles that don't work well on shorter people under 170cm actually look good on men.
Le Kasha cashmere sweaters all look great with a wider, more spacious fit. The silhouettes are very attractive.
Le Kasha's summer items are 100% real silk, but tend to be thin and long with simple styles resembling sleepwear. Fall and winter cashmere is more recommended.
Eric Bompard
Eric Bompard was founded in 1985, with all cashmere Made in China. They offer men's, women's, children's wear, home goods, and cashmere accessories - a full-range French national cashmere brand with high-value mid-range products. Their signature items are men's and women's pure cashmere cardigans, pullovers, and cashmere-cotton blend polo shirts.
Since it's a price-friendly cashmere brand, those concerned with quality can buy the most expensive, thickest cashmere sweaters.
For spring and summer collections, they also make cashmere and cotton blend polo shirts, T-shirts, and shorts.
Some fall and winter jackets and woven coats are blended with 90% wool. They also offer wool suits but in limited styles, and women's pure cotton trench coats. Caution is advised with these items that test fit expertise - Eric Bompard's strength is primarily in their cashmere knitwear series.
Men's and women's fall/winter turtleneck thick cashmere sweaters and cashmere cardigans range from 800-1200 USD.
Men's cashmere-wool blend jackets have good fits. Suits and coats deserve more consideration, as Eric Bompard primarily specializes in cashmere knitwear.
This group of men's cashmere sweatpants is acceptable; the other wool and cotton ones can be skipped.
Scarves come in unisex styles. Eric Bompard scarves are generally on the thinner side, with brighter and lighter colors.
Finally, there's this group with cable knit texture, made from the same fabric as the thicker cashmere sweaters mentioned above. There's also a home cashmere blanket made from this fabric.
The fit of Eric Bompard's medium-thickness crew neck cashmere sweaters is not as sophisticated as Le Kasha's, but it's a price-friendly brand after all.
As a French brand, they must produce a black and white ribbed piece, with an emphasis on large buttons - would be perfect if changed to gold. Celine and Prune Goldschmidt do the same.
The brand philosophy emphasizes environmental protection, ensuring cashmere production complies with animal welfare and safeguarding employee benefits.
The brand is responsible - since 2022, after evaluation, cashmere repair and cleaning after-sales services can be performed at any Eric Bompard store.
Pellat-Finet
Zadig & Voltaire is a French young mass-market fashion brand founded in 1997, headquartered in Paris. Pellat-Finet is a men's cashmere brand founded by French designer Lucien Pellat-Finet in 1994, known for its provocative designs featuring skulls, cannabis leaves, and other patterns. In 2019, Pellat-Finet was acquired by Zadig & Voltaire. In 2024, Lucien Pellat-Finet passed away.
Pellat-Finet's main product is reversible hoodies available in both cashmere and pure cotton. The cashmere knitwear is priced around 2000 euros, relatively thick but with average cashmere quality and unattractive designs. Who likes skull and cannabis leaf patterns nowadays, especially when buying cashmere? Pellat-Finet's business difficulties have their reasons.
The official website also offers solid-colored cashmere hoodies, but those who wear cashmere generally don't wear hoodies (too trendy and youthful). Among the dozens of cashmere brands I know, only Pellat-Finet makes cashmere hoodies, and they're so expensive that they're not worth it unless heavily discounted.
This is the leaf pattern, made of pure cotton, so the price is 1/3 of the cashmere version, but even for this design, the pure cotton price is quite expensive. The brand isn't even well-known.
Netherland
Extreme Cashmere
Saskia Dijkstra lived and worked in Hong Kong for 20 years, representing several Hong Kong clothing manufacturing factories. After discovering a factory capable of producing double-sided cashmere pullovers, she began dedicating 10% of her effort to creating Extreme Cashmere. The brand was officially established in 2016, operating in Amsterdam with a focus on the Japanese market. Currently, their cashmere is primarily processed in Hangzhou, China.
Extreme Cashmere specializes in relaxed, lightweight cashmere for both men and women, including socks, sleeves, and accessories. They frequently shoot for niche magazines.
They offer mid to low-end pricing with basic styles in a rich variety of colors - 5 to 21 different options, the most color variety I've seen. However, the cashmere quality is average, with visible scratchiness even in photos.
Like Le Kasha, all Extreme Cashmere styles come in only one size and don't distinguish between men's and women's styles - everything is unisex. This approach began when Saskia had her brothers and sisters try the first cashmere sweater she found, discovering it looked good on everyone. Thus, Extreme Cashmere started with unisex designs in a single size.
They offer sweaters, cardigans, dresses, skirts, and pants - all knitted.
Their cardigans are mostly Miu Miu Ballet Core style lightweight cardigans, with various thicknesses of zippers and two-button cardigans also available.
I don't recommend their cashmere knit dresses, short sleeves, vests, and pants - the fit is ordinary, styles are limited, and the cashmere is very thin with visibly inferior quality. The better options from Extreme Cashmere are found in their cardigans and pullovers, which are the brand's core categories.
The brand has good connections in Hong Kong, and fashion capital in China is also promoting this brand.
German
German cashmere brands actually mainly come from Italy, like Brunello Cucinelli, Peserico (which I somehow overlooked before)... Many Italian cashmere brands open branches in Germany in addition to Russia and resort destinations.
FTC Cashmere
Founded in 2003 by Andreas and Jutta Knezovic, now run by the second generation of the family, Adrian and Jana Knezovic. (When it comes to family businesses, Germany and Italy still lead the way, haha)
From raising their own cashmere goats to production and processing, FTC owns the "New Shaanxi Goat Farm" on the Loess Plateau, home to over 16,000 cashmere goats. The company is responsible for the farm's operation and management, including feed cultivation (corn and alfalfa) and the processing and extraction of the highest quality cashmere.
In Hebei Province, China, FTC has its own factory where all subsequent processing steps take place, from washing, sorting, combing, yarn dyeing, knitting (fully-fashioned), warping, preparation testing, to final selection. They collaborate with Hong Tai's parent company - the work uniforms in the photo below display "Hong Tai Group." This explains why when browsing Hong Tai, such an ordinary store had some surprisingly fashionable and youthful styles - it turns out they have a partnership with German FTC Cashmere.
The nursing baby goat in the photo above is the source of baby cashmere, which is finer, warmer, and more comfortable. The fiber harvested from these kids has a lustrous sheen comparable to silk.
FTC Cashmere's products are designed in Switzerland and Germany, with seasonal collections including fashion items for men and women as well as home cashmere. Their core category is basic cashmere sweaters for men and women, priced at 2000-3000 RMB each, making them another price-friendly mass-market brand. The quality is better than the Dutch Extreme Cashmere mentioned above, partly because they have baby cashmere raw materials. Like Eric Bompard, they also offer some knitted sweaters in natural undyed cashmere colors.
They focus on solid-colored basic cashmere knitwear, with women's pieces featuring some brighter colors like red.
As a 21st-century cashmere brand, FTC consistently emphasizes environmental protection and social responsibility, with real actions to back it up, including building solar panels for electricity generation, collaborating with local governments, providing herdsmen with above-market wages, and supporting elementary schools.
In summer, FTC (Fair Trade Cashmere) also launches organic cotton-cashmere blend T-shirts and short sleeves, though pants and short sleeves are not FTC's main products. Their most extensive category is cashmere sweaters.
They also focus on innovation, developing blends with SeaCell® (a 100% biodegradable fiber material based on seaweed and lyocell fiber) and cashmere. This is the first time I've heard of this fabric. The material is entirely processed in Europe and was developed by FTC themselves. The actual effectiveness is unknown.
FTC's official website features this type of patterned upknit made with half cashmere and half Seacell.
Sweden
Lisa Yang
I previously wrote a dedicated article about Lisa Yang, using this brand to introduce the common cashmere knitting techniques currently in the market, so I'll keep this brief. It's a cashmere brand established in Stockholm in 2014 by someone from Beijing, with factories in Inner Mongolia.
Their men's and women's cashmere sweaters, cardigans, jackets, and cashmere pants are all quite good, with styles leaning toward youthful and relaxed. For women's wear, the cashmere vests and short-sleeve items are worth noting, especially those in special seasonal colors that are very design-focused. Each season they release some unique colors like space blue and grass green that are rarely seen in cashmere products - these styles typically sell out quickly.
America, Japan
Here I'll just briefly mention American cashmere brands - they don't warrant dedicated individual articles, so I'm including them in this collection. American high-end consumers care more about design, and minimalist luxury American brands are worth studying and learning from. If buying cashmere, start with these high-end minimalist brands. Being closer to Peru, they also have Alpaca Wool, which is a North American specialty.
The Japanese cashmere situation is similar to America's - cashmere items are purchased from minimalist brands (like the recently popular auralee). A nice niche brand specializing in cashmere, Yuri Park, shut down for FW2024. Their cashmere quality, design styles, and solid thickness were comparable to Neri Firenze, but they still closed after 20 years in business.
TSE Cashmere
The highest-end American cashmere brand is still TSE established by a Hong Kong person (which I've written about before - recommended for their specialty knit cashmere sweaters, cardigans, and dresses) and God's True Cashmere, a men's patterned shirt cashmere brand established in 2019 by Brad Pitt and a friend, Made in Italy, though with a high celebrity premium. In America, only TSE Cashmere and God's True Cashmere are worth buying.
The prices shown are in Hong Kong dollars.
God's True Cashmere
Here's a brief introduction to God's True Cashmere. Since it was only established in 2019 and focuses solely on cashmere shirts, there's limited information to share.
From the image below, you can see that God's True Cashmere's pricing is high-end, comparable to luxury cashmere brands like Loro Piana, Brunello Cucinelli, Lanificio Colombo, and Barrie.
With prices like that, the craftsmanship and quality are indeed superior, resulting in many repeat customers. Brad Pitt and Sat Hari jointly select the shirt colors and yarns, and together they find inspiration and design the plaids. The products are manufactured by a small factory in Italy, with buttons made from gemstones from India (as Sat Hari is a jewelry designer). Additionally, the products are shipped in organic brushed cotton bags without using plastic.
This brand could grow significantly - notice how every shirt has the same number of buttons.
Sofia Cashmere
For more affordable options (where you can buy a basic cashmere sweater for 2000 RMB), there's Autumn Cashmere (established 2008), Ryan Roche (established 2011), and Naadam (established 2013). These three are too cheap with average styles and poor cashmere quality. I haven't included them in this article and don't recommend them.
Sofia Cashmere is better, more mid-range, with core categories in cashmere capes, shawls, scarves, and blankets in many varieties, including substantial ones. They also offer basic cashmere sweaters, cardigans, dresses, and coats - be selective when purchasing, as the coat silhouettes are still average.
Before establishing the Sofia Cashmere brand, they had decades of experience in cashmere production and processing. Currently, in addition to ready-to-wear clothing, they're also in the wool and cashmere yarn spinning and cashmere import business.
Sofia Cashmere's main cashmere categories are sold through major retailers. Their official website primarily features capes and scarves with fur collars, with the fur sourced from Finland and combed in the US.
Comparatively, sales of cashmere sweaters, outerwear, and coats lag behind the cashmere capes, shawls, and blankets mentioned above.
The designs aren't very youthful. Their coats offer good value for money, though the pattern-making still needs improvement.
Sofia Cashmere's basic cashmere sweaters, cardigans, and dresses are quite good with high value for money. They're sold at Saks OFF 5TH, Neiman Marcus, and Nordstrom.
A special feature of the Sofia Cashmere website is their collaboration with Instagram influencers, with a dedicated webpage introducing what these influencers have purchased. However, I feel the effect is limited, without much collaboration.
Epilogue
Looking at production distribution, Chinese cashmere processing is mainly concentrated in four regions: Inner Mongolia, Hebei, Hangzhou, and Hong Kong. Hong Kong's cashmere processing has particularly close ties with British brands, stemming from Hong Kong's history as a British colony. Additionally, due to frequent personnel exchanges between Hong Kong and North America, many American and Canadian cashmere brands have established business connections with Hong Kong. Not all of Hong Kong's cashmere processing takes place locally; some is distributed in surrounding areas like Dongguan.
Global cashmere production centers are Italy, China, and the UK.
The cashmere brands introduced in this article that choose Chinese manufacturing generally feature more affordable prices, with brand positioning and style designs targeting younger consumer groups. In comparison, Italian cashmere brands excel in quality and craftsmanship, with higher prices. American top minimalist-style cashmere brands are known for their strong design sense, with high-end heavyweight product lines typically partnering with Italian manufacturers, while some series also use Chinese manufacturing.
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