The growing fashion and desire for cashmere

By Jason William Smith


Cashmere, one of the finest natural fibres known to man, inspires pictures of soft, fragile luxury combining the clear ambiguity of heat and lightness.

Originating in Kashmir, high in the mountains of the Himalayas, cashmere is known by its authentic name, pashmina. The word pashmina is much misused, today being adopted to describe scarfs and scarves of diverse mixes of wool, silk, cashmere, and even polyester.

But real pashmina, from the word pashm, means king's fabric, the name for only the best 100% cashmere, and it has been cherished for hundreds of years. Pashmina shawls first found their way to the courts of the Roman Emperors and were later popularised in Europe by Empress Eugenie, wife of Napoleon III, a leader of world fashion in the 19th century, who is credited with introducing cashmere to the western world.

Pashmina or cashmere is the soft downy inner fleece of the Kashmir goat. To stand up to the extremes of temperature in the mountains, dry arid summers and freezing winters, the animals grow two coats, the outer one hard and wiry and the inner one soft and luxurious.

How is it produced?

In springtime, the goats begin to moult and it's then the soft fibre is combed away by hand, each animal making just a few ounces of hair. Combing the goats and collecting the fibre is a family occasion. No harm is done to the goats.

Turning the fibre into fabric is a difficult process and adds to the mystique of the cashmere. The inner and outer coats need to be separated before the fine fibre can be spun and woven. This requires enormous skill.

The characteristics of pashmina, or cashmere, explain its exclusiveness and desirability. The fibre is so fine, at least 6 times finer than a human hair, and measures about 11 microns (11/1000 of a millimetre). When the fibres are twisted together in the spinning process, thousands of miniscule air pockets form which give cashmere its superb insulation and weightlessness.

It takes the annual output of three to 4 goats to produce one cashmere scarf. Put an alternate way, so fine is the fabric that one hand spun, hand woven scarf uses 1.5km of this valuable fibre, yet weighs less than 75grams. Historically in Kashmir the spinning and weaving is performed by hand, the girls spin and the men weave, whilst most other cashmere is now produced by machine. At Black we have cashmere using both strategies.

Today cashmere is a popular luxury material utilised for creating ourcashmere gloves cashmere hats, jumpers and scarves and cashmere socks.We pride ourselves on using the highest quality cashmere in the United Kingdom. The range of designs are modern and classy and available in 1 or 2 different colours to match any wardrobe.




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