The 12 Best Cashmere Sweaters of 2023

Cashmere is the G.O.A.T. (get it?) of attainable luxury.

woman wearing yellow cashmere sweater with text the essentials overlayed in white
(Image credit: Getty Images)

Welcome to The Essentials, our weekly series highlighting a must-have classic, key to building a timeless, pulled-together closet.

We all know the ease of slipping into a great sweater. It feels cozy and familiar, offering a sense of comfort akin to that of a decades-spanning friendship. But today, I'm specifically spotlighting cashmere women's sweaters. Produced from the soft undercoat of certain breeds of goats found in mountains around the world, including Mongolia, China, and Australia, cashmere wool is inherently refined and a rare resource—hence the steep price tag on 100 percent cashmere products. But as our former Accessories Editor Katie Attardo puts it, "Lightweight, warm, and soft, cashmere is an attainable luxury." She's right; the natural characteristics of the fiber, when partnered with quality production and manufacturing, leave us with beautifully crafted knitwear that is softer, warmer, and more delicate than its scratchy wool counterparts. And, as you'll discover below, some of 2023's best cashmere sweaters come with surprisingly affordable price tags, too.

Find your next go-to, forever knit from our favorite cashmere sweaters ahead. Whether you're in need of a statement silhouette or are leaning towards a more neutral addition, I've got you covered—because there's never a wrong time to invest in quality cashmere.

The Best Cashmere Sweaters

Emma Childs
Fashion Features Editor

Emma is the fashion features editor at Marie Claire, where she explores the intersection of style and human interest storytelling. She covers viral styling tips—like TikTok's "Olsen Tuck" and Substack's "Shirt Sandwiches"—and has written dozens of runway-researched trend reports about the ready-to-wear silhouettes, shoes, bags, and colors to shop for each season. Above all, Emma enjoys connecting with real people to discuss all facets of fashion, from picking a designer's brain to speaking with stylists, entertainers, artists, and C-suite executives about how to find a personal style as you age and reconnect with your clothes postpartum.

Emma also wrote for The Zoe Report, Editorialist, Elite Daily, Bustle, and Mission Magazine. She studied Fashion Studies and New Media at Fordham University Lincoln Center and launched her own magazine, Childs Play Magazine, in 2015 as a creative pastime. When Emma isn't waxing poetic about niche fashion discourse on the internet, you'll find her stalking eBay for designer vintage, reading literary fiction on her Kindle, doing hot yoga, and "psspsspssp-ing" at bodega cats.