Possum Is the New Cashmere
One person’s roadkill is another person’s perfect winter glove
Good morning and happy new year my darlings. I’m writing to you from the passenger seat of a pick-up truck driving on the wrong side of the road.
I migrated south for Christmas to spend time with my partner’s family in Sydney — I’m caked in salt, my hair hasn’t been dry or sand-free in a week, and I’ve eaten my weight in prawns and pavlova. I hope your holiday break was just as indulgent.
★ In this letter
I found my new favorite natural fiber at a rural Australian roadside gift shop (spoiler alert: it’s possum)
What makes this fiber so unique & why it’s a New Zealand speciality
Oceanic knitwear brands I took note of + winter-ready secondhand possum knits
Holiday field notes from my summer/winter break with thoughts on Diane Keaton, 2026 color palettes, and New Year’s resolutions
In the midst of the liminal week between Christmas and New Year’s, my partner and I drove to Melbourne for a night. Three hours outside of Sydney and we’re solidly in rural Australia now: as far as the eye can see it’s gum trees, grazing sheep, and troupes of wallaby bouncing along in scarce patches of shade.
We pull off into a town to re-fuel and I’m told to keep an eye out for “The Big Merino.” Before I have time to ask any further questions, the 50-foot sheep comes into view — guardian of the pumps, maybe, or perhaps just waiting idly by for an ambitious knitter to come along and shear him.
Hoards of road-trippers snapped commemorative photos posing beneath the sheep’s scowl, but I’m more interested in what’s tucked around his back legs. Kitty-corner from the gas station, dwarfed by the Merino’s concrete backside, is a storefront that I feel in my bones has treasure waiting inside.
My partner’s passed the big sheep a thousand times while roadtripping with his family growing up, always making a stop here for gas and a stop at the bakery across the street for a meat pie, and not once did he step foot in the gift shop. He didn’t even realize there was one. Not until he brought me.
A soothing scent of small batch bath products floats over me when I walk through the door. The wall to the left is lined with shelves of sheep’s milk soap, lavender hand creams, and Manuka honey healing potions of various viscosities. At my right, the rest of the store is a different kind of paradise — there’s enough knitwear to dress all of Whoville.
Piles of sweaters stack high enough to teeter; chunky socks spill out of vintage leather trunks; pearlescent buttons shimmering against a perfect putrid green wool. There’s nowhere for your eyes to land that hasn’t been christened by knitting needles.
Fingerless gloves are a city winter necessity: sacrificing the convenient use of my thumb and pointer finger is not worth any level of warmth. If I can’t tap my way onto the train without fighting thick layers of wool between my phone and my finger, I’m useless. Mittens are for country folk.
I came so close to buying a cashmere pair this fall (was especially eyeing this Jenni Kayne pair on a rec from Maya Ernest) but didn’t for some reason. Now I know it was the possum making decisions for me, stringing me along by my hair like Remy the rat, guiding me to wait for a glove just around the corner.
In the Big Merino Gift Shop, the gloves are a bit hidden, as treasure often is. I nearly missed them altogether, hung on stocky racks in the store’s center drowning in a sea of more attention-grabbing knits. My heart skipped a beat when I found them — soft and plump like a pair of ripe blueberries. They ticked all the boxes and then some: mid-forearm in length, a sleeve for the thumb instead of just a hole, and composed of primarily natural fibers.
It was a fiber I wasn’t too familiar with though, a fiber belonging to an animal I primarily associate with Appalachian roadkill and gnawed-through bags of garbage. The New Zealand-made gloves are knit with possum hair — and they were a certified steal at $27 USD.