Causeyside cashmere stole, White/Silver

Begg x Co dates to 1866, when its first mill stood on Causeyside Street in Paisley, the Scottish town whose weavers gave their name to the teardrop pattern the world calls paisley. The company has been in Ayr on Scotland's west coast since 1907. For its 160th anniversary, announced in August 2026, it has gone back to the beginning with a limited-edition capsule, and the Causeyside wrap is named after that first street.

Enter the archive. The design is inspired by a Begg x Co shawl held in Paisley Museum, and its jacquard patterns and circular motifs are drawn, the company says, from historic punched loom cards: the cards with holes that told nineteenth-century jacquard looms which threads to lift, a distant ancestor of the computer punch card. They are reinterpreted here in a White/Silver colourway, with Wine/Rust as the alternative.

It is woven in 100 per cent cashmere in the company's own Scottish mill, measures 100cm by 100cm and is finished with fringing on all four sides, which signals a wrap to be folded and draped rather than a scarf to be knotted. Folded into a triangle it sits over the shoulders like a light shawl, and opened out it is generous enough for a cold cabin or a terrace after dark. A square of that size packs flat and weighs little, which is more than can be said for a jumper.

There are caveats. Begg x Co's care note says natural fibres may pill over time and recommends gentle brushing in the direction of the fibre, and a pale colourway will not forgive an airline coffee. The edition is also limited, so this is a wrap to buy when seen rather than to wait on.

As an object, though, it does something anniversary editions rarely manage: it uses the archive to make something wearable rather than merely commemorative.

Photographs courtesy of Begg x Co