This paper maps three critical shifts in the production and consumption of Kashmir-style shawls between 1770 and 1870. In this period, Kashmir’s shawl industry was subject to control by military fiscal states with substantial capacities to enforce demands on artisans and merchants. The mobility of weavers and merchants, who found more hospitable circumstances in colonial Punjab in the mid nineteenth century, challenged the territorial logic of state control. This restructured the Kashmir industry and displaced competitive advantage to the fledgling Punjab industry. Changes in the geographies and idioms of shawl consumption also drove these transformations. The decline of royal patronage, in proportion to the advance of British power in Asia, and a surge in European consumer demand, drew Kashmir, Kashmiris and Kashmir shawls into new commercial and symbolic circuits. These developments facilitated state formation, in Kashmir and beyond, and generated the defining symbolic representations of modern Kashmir.