For centuries, cashmere has been considered a noble material. When Thierry Gillier adopted it in the 1990s, the cashmere jumper was a desperately sensible style. Very old school, it represented unshakeable conformism. For the founder of Zadig&Voltaire, it was time to transcend this material and dust off its image.

In 1997, Thierry Gillier founded Zadig&Voltaire. He wanted to revolutionise luxury goods by sharing his casual, rebellious vision of fashion. The style he was about to create was characterised by the use of cashmere, which would be decisive for the brand in the future. He dreamed of popularising the material, making it both cool and sexy. Accompanying women every day by coming up with new ways to wear it. He saw its softness as key but he needed to reinvent it; out with the round neckline and ultra figure-hugging knit, he wanted to get rid of the bourgeois look cashmere couldn’t seem to shake! He had plans for a much more rock ‘n’ roll cashmere jumper.