The Italian designer Brunello Cucinelli – known for his soft, luxurious knitwear—shares his memories from sourcing trips to what he calls ‘the country of wind.’ ‘Mongolia is one place in the world that he finds “fascinating for the mind and soul,” he says.

Cucinelli has been making the trip for almost 30 years, to source cashmere from nomadic goatherds in Gorkhi -Terelj National Park. After landing in Ulaanbaatar, he helicopters to a ger, or yurt encampment, to inspect the bales of unspun fibers that come from the downy bellies and chins of the Capra hircus breed.

The goats spend the winter grazing in high-altitude grasslands, developing a fleecy undercoat to insulate themselves from the rapidly shifting weather in the Mongolian mountains—“the country of wind,” as Cucinelli likes to say. Each animal produces three to four ounces of cashmere per season—enough for about a third of one of the fine-gauge sweaters for which he’s known.