The label's origin began in the early 1970s when a young Hamburg native named Alexander Frieborg set off for Asia with nothing more than curiosity and a backpack. What he found in Nepal, India and Tibet stayed with him. The mountains, the markets, the people. Over the following decades long before "PURSCHOEN" existed as a name, he learned to speak fluent Nepali and built lifelong relationships where you are treated like family.
The name itself is simple: a mash-up of the German words pur and schön (pure and beautiful.) It is a fitting description for what the label actually makes. Every scarf begins with certified cashmere wool from Tibet and Mongolia, the ancestral home of the Kashmiri goat, knitted using a technique that gives the fabric an almost weightless, transparent quality. From there, each piece travels to a production facility in Nepal, where it is washed repeatedly and hand-felted using a process Purschoen developed itself. This is also the reason its scarves have a soft, slightly rumpled, lived-in feel rather than the stiff sheen of mass-produced cashmere.
The label designs everything in-house from its Hamburg studio, and the collection has now grown to include silk bandanas and hats but my absolute favourite are the 92 x 92 Felt maxi bandana, which comes in many colours and patterns.
As a partner of The Good Cashmere Standard®, the brand also ties its supply chain to animal welfare and fair conditions for the farmers behind the fibre, and continues to fund scholarships for children at Kathmandu's Mountain Children's Home.
