The Cashmere Whisperer

Ron Moore isn’t a surgeon, but he is surgical in his approach, and he’s got the best bedside manner on billionaires’ row. Moore is the proprietor of the French American Reweaving Company; the houndstooth’s diagnosis—the patient is circling the drain, but there may be a chance—is why his customers gushingly refer to him as a miracle worker.

In what amounts to a strange bedfellows’ nexus of the sustainability and the thriftiness of the uber elite, Moore will give your suits and sweaters bespoke R&R—that’s reweave and repair. (And it’s not only articles of apparel that make their way into his hands. Captains of industry have presented Moore with cherished totems of their childhoods—the bears and the blankies.)

Stepping inside 119 West 57th Street, one of New York’s Emery Roth Beaux-Arts Art Deco-inspired buildings, you might think you’re visiting a Roman bathhouse. However, the FARC’s HQ (not to be confused with the FARC, the Marxist-Leninist Columbian revolutionary military army) is decidedly unassuming.

In 1932, founder Nathan Singer opened the shop, throwing in the fanciful “French American” moniker. News of the old-world workmanship spread by word of mouth—mais bien sur. Moore was a teenager from the Bronx when he took on a part-time, after-school job, sweeping floors and tissuing the sleeves of Happy Rockefeller’s chiffon gowns.

Reweaving is performed by hand, using a magnifying glass. (Repairing one hole can cost anywhere from $30–$100.) Moore doesn’t do the painstakingly precise work himself, describing himself as “the ringmaster” and explaining that: “You have to be both good and fast. I’ve had people try to learn and just give up. I’m down to just two reweavers.”

How should we civilians deal with moths, the bane of every cashmere-lover’s existence? “You’ve got to shake things up,” Moore explains. The malevolent chewers “thrive in static environments.” Also recommended: placing garments in a dryer at medium heat for around ten minutes every so often, and applying cedar spray to cedar wood blocks several times a year.

“You’re not worried that you’ll lose business by sharing your trade secret?” I asked. Moore shook his head: “Moths always find a way.”

Satisfied customers can be a little dramatic. On Yelp, Laura H. from Jackson Heights writes of “weeping” at the thought of the loss of her favorite cardigan and then “weeping again” at seeing it revived. Carolyn from NY swoons over the resuscitation of a decade-old Irish sweater from its “deathbed,” making it the Lazarus of knitwear. Liam Neeson didn’t leave a Yelp review, but once penned a personal thank you to Moore for reviving his “lucky” threadbare velvet smoking jacket. Moore doesn’t “do velvet,” but Neeson pleaded. “It would be like losing a limb to give up the jacket,” the actor said.

I relate to Neeson’s sentiment—almost as much as I fantasize about him in that smoking jacket. My committed relationship with a Barney’s label black cashmere shell tank outlasted my marriage. The form-flattering top was purchased for me by a television network. With its posh tight weave, it’s been impervious to pilling and has never slumped into shapelessness during two and a half decades of dedicated service of my upper torso.

When a moth chomped into the rounded neckline I, like Neeson, couldn’t bear the thought of retiring it, and took a razor to the seams. The Ann Demeulemeester-esque angularity added a surprisingly winning punk aesthetic. Still, when yet another hole appeared, I pleaded my case to Ron. Perhaps with a certain reluctance mingled with enthusiasm for the challenge—a textile Dr. House—he took my case.

When you retrieve your beloved knitwear from the FARC, you’ll notice that the reweaving elves have left a single delicate thread, loosely woven into the fabric, the only evidence of the repair. Your garments are returned to their former glory. It’s a bit of old-timey magic, and I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that just a tiny bit of the reweavers’ magic rubs off on us.