Mott & Bow Cashmere Sweater Review (Timeless Cashmere for Life)

Mott & Bow’s cashmere turtleneck sweater was the first cashmere sweater I owned. When I put it on, I felt like I was escaping into luxury, with the softness and the timeless style.

Let’s get into it though, should you be buying Mott & Bow’s cashmere sweaters? In this review, I’ll discuss with you everything I know about Mott & Bow’s cashmere tops, like how I’ve been wearing them since the brand started getting popular.

At the end, you can decide if you’d like to try Mott & Bow cashmere for women (or men!).

What is Mott & Bow’s cashmere line?

Mott & Bow is known for being a jeans brand, so, OK—they make cashmere, too?

Yup, the brand of my favorite high-waisted jeans makes four cashmere styles for women, and three for men. (This means you can do matchy-matchy in cashmere with your partner—pretty cute).

Mott & Bow cashmere sweaters are 100% cashmere. They are not blends. Mott & Bow sources “Grade A cashmere yarn” in high quality and it is allegedly designed to stop pilling. I once had an H&M cashmere cardigan that pilled after a few years, and it just makes it look “worn,” if you know what I mean.

So with Mott & Bow’s cashmere, there isn’t endless choices. In fact, this is how I like it: I like only a few colors to choose from, so that I’m not spending an hour deciding. And with a limited array of styles, plus helpful model photos on the website, you can shop for what you want, and get it soon after, delivered to your home.

To learn more about Mott & Bow apparel, head right to my Mott & Bow jeans review (you’ll see me wearing their jeans in all the photos here).

Mott & Bow cashmere sweaters I’ve tried

I own all four types of Mott & Bow’s cashmere sweaters. I have one of each, and I tried to get a sense of all the colors and what I liked.

• Cashmere Turtleneck Willow Sweater
• Oversized V-Neck Willow Sweater
• Raglan Crew Cambridge Sweater
• Cashmere Hoodie

I started out with the turtleneck sweater, thinking it would the warmest and coziest, and it really is a style statement. Then I branched out to the V-neck Willow Sweater, and then the Raglan Crew Cambridge, in cashmere.

Finally, when Mott & Bow debuted the “Cashmere Hoodie,” I thought that was a cute style and got it in Navy.

Style

For all four of the women’s styles (and the three of the men’s), the Mott & Bow cashmere sweater styles are truly timeless. Nothing here is so on-trend that I can’t wear it in five years, or ten, or twenty. Cashmere is the type of clothing item that I plan to have in my closet until I am 60 years old, because with the bar to entry, a cashmere sweater isn’t just another cotton T-shirt!

I like the variation in the oversized and fitted styles, with the V-neck being slightly oversized (not really so much, in my experience) and the turtleneck being looser around the middle. The crew is more fitted, and with the Hoodie, it’s kind of a straight fit, but ribbed at the hem at the bottom.

All the styles can be dressed up or dressed down (I mostly dress them up; I most recently wore the turtleneck to a night out with the girls).

Ways to wear them

I see a cashmere sweater as a top to wear to work, to an event, out to dinner, to a bar or to a holiday party.

Mott & Bow says on the product pages for these sweaters that they’re lightweight for year-round use. I appreciate the idea, but I’d mostly wear cashmere in fall and winter, and maybe in summer if there were a cool night in the mountains on a little getaway trip. In that case, one of the lighter colors like the Cream-colored Raglan Crew would be a perfect “summer sweater.”

Sizing and fit

I am about 105-110 lbs (depending on the month) and 5’2”. I typically wear petite styles because of how relatively short I am compared to standard sizing for women who fall into the heights of more like 5’4”-5’8”.

So how has my luck been with Mott & Bow’s cashmere sweaters? Well, I order them all in XS because it’s the smallest size. And I see how it goes.

Impressions on fit: at first, and one year later

For one thing, I remember first trying on the Turtleneck Sweater and thinking it felt oversized, even though it was not described that way.

Mott & Bow says that their women’s Willow cashmere turtleneck sweater is “slightly oversized for a relaxed fit.” When I first got this turtleneck, I was disappointed with the fit being overly large, as I had been so content with the true-to-size fitting of the Marcy Fitted Crew Tee.

However (!), a year later I changed size (or maybe the sweater did?) and now it fits a bit more true to size, without the “oversized” feeling being too strong. (Believe it or not, I also wore this sweater as a way to avoid maternity clothes, when I was around 6 months pregnant.)

In line with the sweater feeling too big at first, I felt like it was both too long and the shoulders were too wide. I am all for an oversized sweater, but something about the sweater did not feel flattering. Now, though, I think my hips got wider, and that’s what makes it sit more appropriately on the top half of my body. So, this year, I like the turtleneck!

The V-neck sweater is quite lovely. I put it on and liked it right away. I also have the Raglan Crew-neck cashmere sweater and I’m happy with this one as well, as it has a more snug fit (it’s not a “Willow” sweater, so it’s meant to be fitted).

Comfort and feel

Mott & Bow cashmere is really quite soft, and for that reason, I like it. It feels like cashmere sweaters I’d be running my hands over at a department store (but those are the ones that I can’t afford!).

The Mott & Bow cashmere sweaters are perfectly soft and the turtleneck is the coziest. All four styles are also pretty lightweight. They feel a little thin, but that’s the latest trend with cashmere: to be appropriate for three seasons.

Caring for Mott & Bow cashmere

As these sweaters are pure 100% cashmere, care is a big topic for treating them as delicates. All four should be hand-washed. For me, as someone who does a lot of laundry in the washer, it scares me just a little.

I usually wear a fitted tee like my Mott & Bow Marcy tee under sweaters during winter. This is to keep them clean and odor-free from the inside.

I also try to be super careful around spills and crumbs in order to avoid washing delicate sweaters. Believe it or not, I like to avoid buying sweaters in white and cream colors, focusing only on dark colors like navy and black. Maybe this is the New Yorker in me, or maybe it’s the “soon to be Mom-of-two” that knows things splash, splatter and stain).

This being said, I have yet to wash any of my Mott & Bow cashmere. I wear them for nice occasions and keep them away from my toddler! If I somehow any of them got very stained or dirty, I would opt for the second care option, which is dry cleaning!

Price: affordability?

Mott & Bow’s cashmere sweaters are priced how I think I’d “expect” cashmere sweaters to be priced. They’re not unaffordable and they’re priced at the price point of where I’d expect a cashmere sweater to fall: above $100, and below $200. If you want a cashmere sweater, you probably know it’s not going to be under $25 or something like that.

The only sweater that far out-prices the others is the Cashmere Hoodie. At $200+, I think it’s priced this way because of the extra material on the hood, and rightfully so. Cashmere is a type of fabric that comes from animals, and it’s not just regular cotton that’s dime a dozen.

As for the competition, I have to admit that Quince is under-pricing other brands with direct-to-consumer cashmere. If that interests you, head to my Quince cashmere review.

Cashmere for men

Like I mentioned in the intro, Mott & Bow also makes cashmere sweaters for men. There are currently three styles (Crew, V-Neck and Hoodie). Dan has one of them!

He got the Cashmere Crew Bergen Sweater in Charcoal Heather, and size S. That’s the size he wears in Mott & Bow T-shirts, actually, as he describes in his Mott & Bow men’s review.

Difference between women’s cashmere and men’s cashmere

The only real differences I can find besides the fact that Mott& Bow does not make a turtleneck for men (yet) is that the men’s sweaters come in different colors, and sometimes, MORE colors. Yes, the men’s crew sweater comes in five colors! I like the Forest Green.

The V-Neck comes in 3 colors and the Hoodie actually comes in 3 colors, whereas the women’s Cashmere Hoodie only comes in 2 colors (fine with me—less choosing!).

The big question: worth it?

I think you’ve probably realized by reading this review that the fit of these cashmere sweaters grew on me over time. And that’s fine: I got cashmere sweaters to last for a lifetime, not just this season!

I’m hugely into clothing that lasts for decades, with quality to match. I do not like fast fashion, and I don’t like bad-quality garments that I’ll want to give away in a few months. You may already know this if you saw my sustainability-focused apparel reviews like my Finisterre review and Wild Rye review!

That being said, if you’re looking to invest in quality cashmere sweaters right now, I would try Mott & Bow’s cashmere collection. It’s not overwhelming, and you can see in the above that I vouch for the brand, the quality and the shopping experience.

The only place to shop for Mott & Bow is at the company’s website, so head there to start your browsing.

Returns and exchanges

If you’re concerned about returns, I recommend visiting the Mott & Bow Exchanges & Returns page to see how that works with this company. Remember: Mott & Bow only does sales online and on social media, so there are no in-person stores.

A final thank-you

Thank you to Mott & Bow for continually making this type of review possible since 2022 and for providing updated product launches to me over the past several years.