Second Cashmere curates thoughtful collections of secondhand and recycled cashmere.
Our Beginnings
Since we began, Second Cashmere has evolved in many ways. Our beginnings stemmed from a desire to create a more sustainable alternative to buying new, enveloping waste into our collections to forge a new path in the cashmere industry. Simply put, we wanted to disrupt the cycle of buying new and throwaway culture.
Cashmere is a treasured fabric. It’s a fabric you would naturally assume not to have a place in such a culture. We throw away anything and everything - a stark reminder of how we’ve all fallen out of love with the stories behind what we own. Cashmere is a gate keeper of Scotland’s rich textile heritage, with generations of knowledge passed down in our communities to innovate and create knitted and woven fabrics that have formed much of the United Kingdom’s luxury fashion footprint. It takes time, natural resources and skill to transform cashmere from its original state into the unrivaled brilliance it offers, so how is it that we still discard it?
We source our cashmere from textile recyclers, working mostly with pre-consumer waste to create collections that divert textiles from landfill.
Starting out with the restoration of secondhand cashmere knitwear, we soon realised that if we were to truly address the issue of waste, we need to expand our natural understanding of the resource we were using. We couldn’t just simply restore knitwear that was almost fine, we had to focus on the items that were too far gone to recondition and repair. So, we pulled our focus to encompass all cashmere waste - the worn out, the shrunken and the shreds, innovating our approach to find craft-forward methods of transforming forgotten fabrics into beautiful objects.
Since that moment, we have committed ourselves to discovering renewed uses for all cashmere waste. Our collections embody three core pillars; restored secondhand knitwear from renowned brands, that is thoughtfully restored and repaired using traditional darning techniques. We use depaneled knitwear that can’t be reused fully-formed to create small batches of cashmere accessories and designs that are crafted by artisans in Scotland. And we unravel cashmere fabrics to create reclaimed yarns that are perfect for mending both our own collections and your knitwear at home.
By attaching ourselves to this commitment, we are hopeful for the future of cashmere and we look forward to sharing our journey with you.
