Why 70% cashmere and 30% silk

Every Georgina Brandolini piece is knitted in the same blend: seventy per cent cashmere, thirty per cent silk. It is not a cost decision, and it is not a fashion one. It is the only composition that produces the particular thing these garments are meant to be — a knit with the authority of an evening dress.

What cashmere gives

Cashmere fibre is exceptionally fine and hollow, which is why it insulates so well at so little weight. It is soft in a way that no other natural fibre quite matches, and it holds warmth without bulk. On its own, however, pure cashmere has limits for evening wear: it is matte, it is comparatively unstable under tension, and knitted very fine it tends to grow rather than drape.

What silk corrects

Silk is the longest natural staple fibre and the strongest by weight. Blended into cashmere at thirty per cent, it does three things at once:

• It adds tensile strength. The knit resists stretching and returns to shape, which is what allows a full-length dress to hang from the shoulders without lengthening over an evening.
• It adds drape. Silk gives weight and fluidity, so the fabric falls in a continuous line down the body instead of holding a knitted stiffness.
• It adds light. A quiet sheen catches the light across a moving silhouette — the difference between a sweater and an evening garment.

Why the ratio matters

Push silk higher and the hand becomes cool and slippery: the warmth and the softness that make cashmere worth wearing begin to disappear. Push it lower and you lose the drape and the resilience, and the piece behaves like knitwear again. Seventy-thirty is the point at which the fabric still feels like cashmere against the skin while behaving like silk on the body.

What it makes possible: the fine gauge

The practical consequence of the blend is gauge. Because the silk stabilises the yarn, it can be spun and knitted extremely fine — fine enough for a full-length dress to weigh almost nothing, fine enough for drop-needle openwork to read as deliberate transparency rather than as a hole in a jumper. Nearly every signature detail in the collection — the drop-needle net across CHLOE's shoulders, the open-knit lace on CLAUDIA, the openwork hem of PENELOPE — depends on a yarn that will hold its structure at that fineness.

How it behaves in real life

It packs flat and arrives uncreased. It is warm enough for a winter evening and light enough for a warm room. It is breathable, so it does not become oppressive over a long dinner. And it wears in rather than out: the hand softens over the first season and then stays.

What it asks in return

A fine blend of two natural fibres wants cold water, a neutral detergent, flat drying and folding rather than hanging. Our full method is set out in how to care for cashmere and silk knitwear.