Way of cashmere sweater made

Way of cashmere sweater made

Summary

One of the rarest natural fibers in the world, cashmere’s not a wool but a hair, which accounts for its unmistakable feel. Most cashmere comes from goats in the Gobi Desert, which stretches from Northern China into Mongolia. Beneath the animals’ coarse hair lies an undercoat of superfine fibers concentrated on the underbelly.

Way of cashmere sweater made
Way of cashmere sweater made
One of the rarest natural fibers in the world, cashmere’s not a wool but a hair, which accounts for its unmistakable feel. Most cashmere comes from goats in the Gobi Desert, which stretches from Northern China into Mongolia. Beneath the animals’ coarse hair lies an undercoat of superfine fibers concentrated on the underbelly.

In May and June, when the goats molt, local workers comb the belly hair, sort it by hand, and send it to a dehairing facility (usually in China) to be cleaned and refined. Then it’s baled and delivered to Europe, where it’s spun into fine yarn and sold to designers for roughly $114 a pound.
With adequate supplies of top-notch raw materials becoming scarce in Asia, Afghanistan has become an unlikely exporter: The country is rich in unadulterated product. As China increasingly blends different qualities of cashmere to achieve volume, Afghan goat farmers are filling the demand for completely pure knits.

Not all cashmere is created equal. Ewsca’s material comes from Inner Mongolia, where the best cashmere comes from. The less expensive garments won’t have these unique properties, will pill more readily and will lack the soft, sumptuous feel that makes cashmere so highly coveted.