As for this campaign—well, the only reason she wants to talk about it, rather than just drop it on the brand’s Instagram account, is because she feels the pictures and stories that go with them are touching. “I want everything to be ‘real’. ‘Oprecht’, the word in Dutch, covers it slightly better; it means sincerity. So, if you do a campaign like this, I always want to tell the truth. I don’t want to do something because it sells well,” she says.
Currently, the brand is carried in 300 stores or websites globally, though Dijkstra is focused on building the brand’s own ecommerce. The price point is relatively high—the classic Crew Hop sweater retails for $700—but Dijkstra feels the price is fair for the quality. ‘Extreme,’ as it’s known by insiders, doesn’t do discounting, which naturally cancels out department stores. Instead, the focus is on boutiques, such as the influential LA store Just One Eye, with whom Extreme Cashmere will launch a pop-up bistro on November 15.
The “bistro” element is another personality quirk of the brand. Dijkstra and her team love to cook, and her young, 22-strong team congregates daily in the company’s Amsterdam headquarters, located in a 17th-century canal-side building, for a communal lunch. The brand’s Paris showroom format is equally convivial. Each season, the team brings its own vintage crockery, gingham tablecloths, flower arrangements, and chefs from Amsterdam to whip up plates of chanterelle risotto for jaded fashion editors, buyers, and friends in the kitchen of the Left Bank mansion it hires for sales appointments. “It started with vodka—then at some point we decided to start with food, then finish with vodka,” says Dijkstra, of the dinners.
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