Reading the label
What you are paying for
A $200 cashmere sweater and a $900 cashmere sweater can both be 100% cashmere, and both are telling the truth. The label stops at the fiber. The price goes on from there, into the yarn, the knitting, the finishing, where it was made and whose name is on it. This page is about telling those apart, so you pay for the parts you can feel.
The short version is that fiber sets the floor, construction sets the middle, and the brand sets the ceiling. Our Low, Mid, High sections on the homepage exist to show that spread on one garment at a time.
- Fiber sets
- The floor
- Yarn and make set
- The middle
- Brand sets
- The ceiling
Fiber sets the floor
Raw fiber is the part of the price that cannot be faked down. Cashmere costs more than merino, merino more than lambswool, long staple cotton more than short, mulberry silk more than tussah. A 100% cashmere sweater under $150 is possible only with short, coarse fibers, and you will feel that in a season. Below a certain price the label can be true and the garment still poor; above it, the fiber is no longer where the money goes.
Yarn and construction set the middle
- Fiber length and grade. Long fibers pill less and last longer. Cashmere graded by diameter and length, cotton by staple, wool by micron. Retailers rarely say, but the ones that do are usually proud of the number.
- Ply. Two ply yarn is two strands twisted together, which is stronger and holds its shape. Single ply is softer and cheaper to knit and wears through sooner.
- Gauge and weight. A heavier knit uses more fiber. A 12 gauge cashmere sweater at 400 grams costs more to make than a 7 gauge at 250, and feels it.
- Weave and finishing. A fully fashioned sweater, knitted to shape and linked at the seams, costs more than one cut from a tube and overlocked. A silk that has been sand washed has had a process applied; a crepe has been twisted hard in the yarn. Each step is labour.
- Where it was made. A knit from Scotland, Italy or Japan carries wages and standards the price reflects. The same fiber from a lower cost mill can be excellent, but the saving is coming from somewhere.
Under $300, buy the fiber. Over $600, you are buying the make. Above that, you are buying the name, and that is allowed, as long as you know it.
The brand sets the ceiling
Past a point, price is design, scarcity and reputation. That is not a trick. A cut that drapes, a colour nobody else has, a house that gets it right every season. Those are real and people pay for them on purpose. The problem is only when a brand price is attached to a fiber floor. A $700 sweater that is 70% wool and 30% nylon is charging you for the name and giving you the blend. The label will say so, and it is the one part of the price you can check.
How to use this
- Start at the composition. At 100% of a single natural fiber, the floor is honest and you can move on to the make.
- Then look for ply, gauge, weight or a named mill. One of those on the product page is worth more than three adjectives.
- Then decide what the name is worth to you. There is no wrong answer, only an unexamined one.
- Use the price slider on any shop page with the natural fiber bar at 100 to see where a fiber's floor sits in the catalog right now.