Paychi Guh Scrunch Neck Pullover – Caribou

Most sweaters have one neckline and you agree to it when you buy them. This one does not. The collar is knitted long and unstructured, so it can be pushed down into a soft cowl, folded inward to sit close and disappear, folded out once as a mock neck, or pulled up and folded as a turtleneck. That is four garments' worth of neckline in one, and it is a knitting decision rather than a styling suggestion: a collar has to be knitted at a specific length and tension to do all four, and one knitted for any single one of them will fail at the other three. The body underneath is asymmetrical and runs two different knit patterns rather than one, which is the second reason this reads as a designed object rather than as a plain sweater. It is also the reason the neck can be as quiet or as loud as it likes without the garment losing its balance: there is already something happening below it. One hundred percent Mongolian cashmere, made in Mongolia.

The colour

Caribou is the house's own name and it is kept as written. It is a warm mid-tone in the range between oatmeal and taupe, which is the register where two knit patterns in one garment stay legible: on a dark color the pattern change disappears, and on a pale one it can look like a flaw. This is the version where you can see what the sweater is doing.

A sweater you can wear four ways is worth more than four sweaters and takes up the space of one, which matters more than it sounds like it does. We also wanted one piece from this house where something is genuinely happening in the knit.

Paychi Guh keeps its graphic incident very small and very deliberate, and this pullover is where the house spends more of it than anywhere else in the line.

One hundred percent Mongolian cashmere. Asymmetrical body worked in two knit patterns, with a long, unstructured neck that can be scrunched as a cowl, folded inward, or folded out as a mock neck or a turtleneck. Made in Mongolia.

We do not hold measurements. An asymmetrical body does not sit squarely on the shoulders and is not meant to, so it will look different on two people of the same size. The neck adds or removes visual weight at the throat depending on how it is worn, which is the most useful thing about it if you are choosing between sizes: the same sweater can read close or read voluminous.

Over the Worsted Cashmere L/S Crew in Navy or Pine Green, worn as a mock neck so the crew's collar shows. With the Premium Cashmere Relaxed Turtleneck in Natural if you want two neutrals that are not the same neutral. Scrunched as a cowl is the version that works with nothing underneath.

Hand wash in cool water with a cashmere wash, press the water out between towels rather than wringing, and dry flat. Fold it, and fold the neck flat with it, because a long unstructured collar hung on a hanger takes the weight of the garment and stretches into a shape it will keep. Our care guidance covers the rest.

The Scrunch Neck Pullover in Charcoal is the same two-pattern body in a color that lets the neck do the talking, and the LS Relaxed Crew is the plain crew from the same run. Everything we carry from Paychi Guh is listed together.