Wear Now:Alanui's Native-American inspired cashmere cardigan

When summer is still a distant prospect and hibernation isnt an option, reaching for the chicest knitwear you can find is the next best thing.Step forward Alanui, the brainchild of Italian siblings Nicolò and Carlotta Oddi.

Like all great start-ups, the brand does one thing very well: ultra-luxurious, oversized cashmere cardigans inspired by a vintage flea-market find and decorated with Native American-inspired motifs in a handful of mood-lifting colourways.

For SS17, the densely fringed knits are scattered with cartoonish cacti and tipis, feather headdress-wearing horses and riders.Such joviality belies the 11 hours of handcraft that goes into their making: it takes five hours to knit together the 980 grams of Italian Cariaggi cashmere, and six more to assemble each cardigan.

"You can find a whole world of meanings and stories behind every pattern,"says Nicolò."Its a journey through colours and iconography."

Indeed, Alanui means "large path"in Hawaiian, a nod to the Pacific road trip for which Carlotta purchased that original vintage knit.The genderless, seasonless styles certainly evoke a nomadic mood.And just as a patchwork quilt holds decades of memories, over time the yarns become imbued with reminders of travels gone by.

Layer up in a mountainside chalet; throw over a bikini at sundown… its the ultimate travel companion, no matter where your path leads.

£2,830; net-a-porter.com