Extreme Cashmere Is Reviving Its Digital Image
LONDON — Extreme Cashmere wants to reach the masses.
The Amsterdam-based cashmere brand founded in 2016 by Saskia Dijkstra, a former manufacturing producer for Joseph, Agnes B and Jil Sander, is reviving its digital image through a new website and webshop that launched Tuesday.
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The digital expansion mirrors the brand’s growth over the last few years as it’s passed the $10 million mark in sales and is on track to reach $15 million by “building brand awareness and carefully broaden[ing] the distribution,” said the company in a statement.
Extreme Cashmere has a firm direct-to-consumer approach. The site wants to be savvy to help customers shop more efficiently. Full looks can be bought instantly without having to add multiple items to your basket as part of the plan to introduce an occasions subcategory that will feature curated ensembles for different events.
“I call it a live magazine where you can go shopping,” she said, adding that it’s simultaneously a useful tool to help customers with cashmere conundrums such as navigating how to wash their “machine-washable sweaters.”
The technicalities of buying a sweater from the brand will also become more straightforward for new and returning customers.
Extreme Cashmere is not moving only digitally, but physically, too, as its offices are relocating to Herengracht 499 in the heart of Amsterdam by the canals, near all the popular tourist landmarks such as the Anne Frank House, Huis Marseille, Museum for Photography and Rembrandt House Museum.
“We were looking for a house to feel at home, not an office,” said Dijkstra, explaining that after visiting so many buildings with the same floors, she came across this property, which is 450 years old.
“We made it a home. Every team has its own office and they chose their own color scheme so it feels like theirs. We built a kitchen and a huge dining room to make it as comfortable as possible.”
Extreme Cashmere
A chef comes in every day to prepare lunch for the teams.
Dijkstra has been in the production of cashmere for more than 20 years, but it was the first design of the crew hop sweater that kick-started the idea of starting a brand. Her first piece “fit every person who tried it on, no matter the age, gender, body type and height” and since then the brand has stood with the label mantra of “one material, one size, all people, all occasions.”
Extreme Cashmere is stocked in more than 300 stores globally and takes pride of place with e-stockists like Mytheresa, Net-a-porter and Matchesfashion ranging in price between 180 pounds and 780 pounds.
Edition 22, an extension to the brand, will make its debut during Paris Fashion Week with a small collection made of selects from the main line that’s interpreted into new designs. It will launch in November.
The new collection is inspired by fairy tales and mushrooms. “It’s romantic and fantasy. In this edition, you can go clubbing with some styles because they’re very sexy, or you can get married in them or go to the office or beach,” said Dijkstra.
In the next phase of its strategy, Dijkstra’s focus is young people, who are already slowly investing in cashmere.
“I want them to be aware that if they have something from us then they will still have it in 10 years. I want to take them away from the culture of buying something once and then throwing it away,” she said.
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