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This past week, on day three of working from home in a uniform of comfortable (and comforting) cashmere, I found myself in a predicament: After glancing down at the gray The Row pullover—now more shabby than sumptuous—that I had snagged in Barneys’s blowout sale, I accepted that if I wanted to get through this crisis with my clothing intact, I would need to save these precious pieces for special occasions. (What exactly a special occasion while quarantined would look like I was not yet sure.) It was then, though, that I remembered the sweater comb that I had picked up at The Laundress’s SoHo shop on a tip from the makeup artist Gucci Westman.
Considering it a Hail Mary, I unwrapped the palm-size cedar tool and began dragging its metal mesh screens through a sea of pills in short vertical strokes. With each motion, the yarn accumulated into soft clusters that I’d discard before moving on to another section. Just five minutes later, with a trash bin now resembling a charcoal-colored cloud, my sweater, to my surprise, was saved—and the nonstop nerves that had been sending me into a tailspin since I began social distancing finally subsided.
It wasn’t just the methodical, meditative motion, though, that proved surprisingly satisfying but the sound too: a gentle raking that made me finally understand the internet’s obsession with ASMR. “It’s very soothing,” said my boyfriend, as I finished combing through a vintage V-neck that hadn’t seen the light of day in years, before turning to his closet. Now our knits have a new lease on life, and I’ve found a way to stay zen even without my morning hot-yoga class. There’s only one catch: If I’m going to keep it up, I need more sweaters.
