Department
Kashmiri Winter Wear
This is the half of the year the shop was built for. Five pieces, warm by the density of the cloth rather than by a lining: overcoats in handwoven pattu, tweed off hand looms in Anantnag, cardigans knitted in Gurez, and undyed pattu made up as an overcoat. From ₹4,290 to ₹11,900, each carrying the name of the person who wove it.
Shop the 5 pieces How to choose
Hand looms in Anantnag, Gurez and Srinagar
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What makes Kashmiri winter wear different
Nothing on this page is warm because of padding. It is warm because of the cloth: wool spun thick and woven dense on a hand loom, so the air is trapped inside the weave rather than inside a quilted panel. That is why a pattu overcoat with no padding holds a January morning that a mill-woven coat of the same weight will not, and why none of these pieces needs a padded shell to work.
What happens after weaving is what separates them. A pattu overcoat leaves the loom finished: undyed sheep wool, the colour it came off the animal, cut straight and fully lined in cupro so it slides over knitwear. Tweed is woven off hand looms around Anantnag, its fleck coming from wool dyed before it was spun rather than printed on afterwards. The cardigan never sees a loom: it is hand-knitted in Gurez over about forty hours, one knitter to a cardigan.
Every piece carries a card naming the weaver or the knitter, and the overcoat the month it came off the loom. All of it is cut one size roomier than the rest of the shop so a cardigan closes underneath without pulling across the back, and hems are altered free in the Srinagar shop.
At a glance
₹4,290 – ₹11,900- Fibre
- Kashmiri sheep wool and undyed Kashmiri lambswool
- Cloth
- Hand-loomed tweed, undyed handspun pattu, hand-knitted lambswool
- Made in
- Woven in Anantnag and Kupwara, knitted in Gurez, tailored in Srinagar
- Hand work
- Hand-set sleeves on the pattu overcoat, a hand pad-stitched chest on the tweed, a cardigan knitted by hand
- Pieces in stock
- 3: a tweed jacket, a cardigan and an overcoat
- Price range
- ₹4,290 – ₹11,900
- Sizes
- S to XXL, cut one size roomier; free hem and sleeve alterations
- Dispatch
- Within 5 working days after final inspection, insured courier
- Returns
- 10 days unworn with the tags on, if bought before the first snow
- Care
- Dry clean the tweed and pattu once a season; hand wash the cardigan cool
In stock now
Every winter piece we make
Three winter pieces, and the waxed field jacket that goes over them. Prices include GST; winter wear ships insured with signature on delivery.
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Buying guide
How to choose a Kashmiri winter piece
Decide what the piece has to do before you decide on a budget. A cardigan you wear every day is a different object from an overcoat you bring out for the coldest weeks, and the price gap between them is almost entirely loom and hand-work time, not material.
| Cloth | How it is made | Hand-work beyond weaving | Weight | Price here | Choose it for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Undyed pattu | Kashmiri sheep wool hand-spun and woven undyed on a pit loom in Kupwara, left the colour it came off the animal | Hand-set sleeves, no padding, fully lined in cupro | 620 GSM | ₹11,900 | The coldest weeks. Warm by density, not by padding. |
| Hand-loomed tweed | Woven on pit-treadle hand looms in Anantnag; the fleck is wool dyed in the fleece, not printed | Half-canvassed front with a hand pad-stitched chest piece | 480 GSM | ₹8,490 | A jacket for the working week that reads as a coat. |
| Waxed cotton | Long-staple cotton twill milled with paraffin and beeswax, cut and stitched in Srinagar | Re-waxed by hand every second season | 8 oz | ₹5,490 | Rain and wet snow, closed over a cardigan. |
| Gurez lambswool | Hand-knitted in Gurez on 3.5 mm needles, undyed and sorted by fleece shade | Knitting only, about forty hours a piece | 690 g in M | ₹4,290 | Daily wear, and the layer everything else closes over. |
Judge density, not thickness
A 480 GSM hand-loomed tweed is warmer than a padded shell twice its bulk, because the air sits inside the weave. Weight tells you how the piece will hang; how tightly it is woven tells you how warm it is.
Ask which loom it came off
Every piece here carries a card naming the weaver and the village. If a seller cannot say who wove the cloth, it came off a power loom, whatever the label says.
Buy the piece you will actually wear
A hand-finished overcoat is put away and brought out. A lambswool cardigan gets worn a hundred and twenty days a year. Most first-time buyers are happier starting with the knitwear.
Outerwear questions
What buyers ask us about outerwear
What is the difference between lambswool and merino?
Both are sheep fleece. Merino is finer, typically 17 to 22 microns, and is spun for next-to-skin softness. Lambswool is the first clip from a young sheep, a little heavier and springier, and it holds its shape far better in a knit. For a cardigan worn over a shirt through a Kashmiri winter, lambswool is the right choice; for a base layer, merino is.
How can I tell hand-loomed tweed from a blend?
Look for the handloom mark and the weaver’s name on the label; the pattu overcoat also records the month it came off the loom. Physically, hand-loomed cloth has slightly uneven yarn, a warm rather than slippery hand, and a soft selvedge instead of a fused one. A seam thread that burns to a dry ash settles the fibre question.
Does squashing a knit into a pocket prove it is fine wool?
Only partly. A fine knit will squash into a coat pocket, and our lambswool cardigan does. But a thin acrylic jumper packs down too, and a hand-loomed overcoat never will. Use packability to judge yarn fineness, not quality, and use weight and weave count for the rest.
How do I wash a wool jacket?
Do not, unless it is a plain knit. Send tweed and pattu outerwear to a specialist dry cleaner every two or three seasons and keep solvent off the horn buttons. The plain lambswool cardigan can be hand-washed cold with a wool detergent and dried flat, never hung.
Which coat should I buy for a wedding?
For a wedding or a formal winter event, the hand-loomed tweed jacket at ₹8,490 is the usual choice. For a once-in-a-lifetime piece, choose the undyed pattu overcoat at ₹11,900, which is made in runs of a few dozen a year.
How long does a made-to-measure overcoat take?
Pieces held in stock are dispatched within five working days after final inspection, then couriered insured with signature on delivery. A made-to-measure overcoat is cut after a fitting at the Srinagar shop, and we confirm its date at that fitting, because it depends on which cloth is on the loom.
More in the help centre, or read the shipping and insurance policy for outerwear travelling outside India.
Keep browsing
The other three departments
Everything ships from the same Srinagar unit, so a coat and a tee travel in one parcel.