Meet our director

Greetings! I'm Amy Swanson, Director of June Cashmere at our headquarters in Columbus, Ohio. After a career in academia where I taught Spanish at university, I found the need to address my longing to work with textiles. I joined June Cashmere in 2017 to build our wholesale division with local yarn shops around the world. In 2019, when Sy Belohlavek needed to focus his resources on establishing a cashmere dehairing facility in Kyrgyzstan, a move that will allow us to work with more shepherds and continue Sy's economic development work in-country, our company took a short pause to determine what the future would be for the yarn company.  At that time, I decided  (along with my husband) that we would invest in developing the yarn to keep growing the yarn company. Our new stock arrived late January 2020. . . just in time for the world to go into Covid-19 economic shutdown. Trunk shows, trips, and orders--all canceled--a story most everyone in business relates to--and an initiation right out of the box!

But forward we shall go and as we do so, I intend to focus our company on the principles of slow fashion, ever mindful of the life our Kyrgyz shepherds live in order to raise the goats that give us exquisite cashmere. I plan to add my own pattern designs for our yarn and develop ways for other designers to contribute, too.  I'm excited about newsletters that share tips about creating with cashmere, what's happening on the ground in Kyrgyzstan, and what's happening behind the scenes as I work in our studio. I'm thinking of clubs and kits and creative ways to engage our customers. There's much to do, but I hope to do it in rhythm with time, the seasons, and at a pace I can enjoy. At any rate, I look forward to interacting with you and telling you all about this yarn and company that I'm so proud to be a part of. Until very soon. . . . Amy