About Us

Our Story

North of Indus began with a simple frustration: it is nearly impossible, as a buyer
anywhere outside Jammu & Kashmir, to know whether the pashmina shawl in front of you
is real.

Genuine pashmina — hand-spun from the undercoat of the Changthangi goat,
handwoven on a wooden loom, sometimes embroidered for weeks by a single
needleworker — has almost nothing in common with the machine-loomed, silk-blended
imitations that dominate the global market under the same name. The difference isn't
aesthetic. It's a different object entirely.

We work directly with GI-registered cooperatives and individually verified artisans across
two regions: the Kashmir Valley, home to centuries-old Sozni needlework, and Basohli,
where handloom weavers in the Ravi basin produce the rare Chashm-e-Bulbul diamond
weave using techniques passed down through families, not factories.

Every shawl we sell carries its GI registration number, the name of the artisan who made
it, and — where embroidery is involved — the number of hours that piece took to
complete. We don't ask you to simply trust that something is authentic. We give you the
means to check.

We are based in Jammu, a few hours by train from both source regions, and we visit the
loom before every piece ships.