J Crew cashmere & Loro Piana

Cashmere Cardigan $2650 by Loro Piana at Neiman Marcus.
You may not have heard of Loro Piana, the venerable cashmere company who make some of the world's softest, and most expensive woolly garments. Apart from clothing multi-millionaires from their fancy-schmancy boutiques in the fashion capitals of the world, they have become the world's largest cashmere maufacturer and have a thriving fabric wholesale business making cashmere, vicuna & wool fabrics. This much is in the public domain. There have been rumours for years on=line that they sold their cashmere to J Crew and my personal little birdy in the fabric industry tells me that J Crew buy in such vast volume that it makes commercial sense for Loro Piana to supply them. Anyway, that certainly explains why J Crew cashmere always seem to be such good quality for the price point.
Photo: jcrew.com