Le Cachemirien

Le Cachemirien was the Paris shop (Rue de Tournon) belonging to clothes designer Rosenda Arcioni Meer, an Italian from Fabriano, married to an Indian. Born to a family of horse-breeders, at the age of 18 she moved to Hamburg to study. After her degree she arrived in New York to follow the course of the Fashion Institute of Technology. She returned to Italy to work as a designer at Byblos, but understood there was more she wanted to learn. In Paris she studied Vionnet’s oblique cutting and the art of draping at Madame Grès. She met and married an Indian, and then discovered his country and its fabrics. Since then she has not designed an item of clothing that is not made with Indian fabrics: embroidered organza from Kerala, muslin from Bengala, “brocart” from Benarès, cashmere. She opened a crafts shop in Kerala and the Paris shop in 1995.