If we have to talk about blankets and name an ancestral, artisan brand that is known beyond our borders, it is undoubtedly Mantas Ezcaray, in La Rioja.

They are synonymous with softness, luxury (there are some of their collaborations with big names such as Loewe, Armani or Carolina Herrera to prove it) and know-how: the third generation of the Valgañón family is currently in charge, and it seems that no time has passed for the Valgañón factory, a firm that has been in operation since 1930 and is known above all for its Mohair.

The founder of Mantas Ezcaray was the grandfather, Cecilio Valgañón: “He was a music enthusiast, when he went to Madrid to the conservatory he used to look at the fashion shops, the shop windows, the most elegant natural fibres… When he returned to Ezcaray he came with the idea of new fabrics, he was an innovative person. It coincided with the Civil War, everything was grey, black, sad… and he decided to go for colours”, says Ignacio Valgañón, the company’s marketing manager.

As with all handmade items, when you see the retail price, you might think that they are expensive, but that vision disappears when you discover the work behind each piece because we are talking about manual processes, not industrial ones. As is the case here.

The brushing, which is something that catches our attention because we would never have thought that something as soft and delicate as a Mohair blanket should be brushed like this, is done with a hard bristle brush just before packing the blanket: “This is something we recommend to our customers, that they comb them with a hard bristle brush, the traditional wooden ones, always brushing in favour of the hair”, Valgañón advises.

And his advice must be right because many people call them to tell them that they have been using the same blanket for 20 years: “Man, that’s not good for our sales, it’s not good, that it lasts so long… but in the end we are known for making high quality products”, he says with a laugh.