Cashmere: don't let anyone pull the wool over your eyes
Feature
Rich old ladies used to wear cashmere. It was expensive and a staple of the conservative woman’s wardrobe along with her twin-set and pearls.
To be honest cashmere was way out of the price range of most of us. We had to make do with wool or, worse still, acrylic. But now, thanks to advances in production which have brought prices way down, it is available to us all in high street shops and even supermarkets.
The cashmere goat originated in Asia Minor. During the Mogul empire in 15th Century India, a large shawl-weaving industry existed involving 40,000 manufacturers in the Indian State of Kashmir.
Over the last century the main producers have been China (90 per cent of the world's total production), Mongolia, Iran, Turkey and India with new production on Australia too.
Since 1980 China has begun to process its own cashmere garments using joint venture arrangements with mainly Japanese interests. This has caused disruption to the orderly marketing system for cashmere in world trade and been responsible for bringing costs within the reach of many more fashion-conscious consumers.
Why is cashmere so coveted? The simple answer is that it is so soft and gives a true feel of luxury. Cashmere is obtained from the animal by combing rather than clipping and the resulting fibre is more like wool than any other hair. The fabric is light in weight and wonderful to wear.
Although it is no longer priced in the stratosphere, cashmere still carries the cachet of something special. It has a soft, comforting feel and a reputation for long-term wear. And at a time when luxury of any kind is an obsession in the global culture, demand remains high.
The mass distribution and accessibility of cashmere has influenced top suppliers to freshen up their garment designs and make them far more trendy, says Lori Holliday Banks, a fashion editor with New York-based Tobe Reports, fashion retail analysts.
“People have had to push the envelope,” she says. “They are offering fine, sheer-gauge fittings for evening, sweater jackets, special button details, ponchos and trendy shrunken silhouettes. Cashmere was once viewed as a classic category. Now it's more about fashion.”
Because cashmere was such a high-priced luxury fibre the cashmere industry has been plagued with misconceptions and misrepresentations. In 1999, the fashion world heated into a frenzy over a so-called pashmina shawl. The implication was that the fibres, reported to be from Himalayan goats, were special and finer than other cashmere.
In truth, pashmina is not a fibre. It is an Indian word for cashmere and part of a huge promotional hype.
Kenneth Langley, who tests cashmere for the Boston-based cashmere and camel hair institute, often at retailers' requests, says the pashmina story was a myth. Even when people were paying up to $500 for a shawl, the material was a blend of silk and cashmere.
Today, some manufacturers still use the word pashmina to describe 100 per cent cashmere. And some use the term in reference to a blend. Legally, the word cannot be used without an authentic fibre content description.
The mislabelling of cashmere is an ongoing issue for the industry. Certainly the blends with silk or wool can be lovely and appealing and may offer a way to have good-quality cashmere at affordable prices.
But a sweater marked 100 per cent cashmere cannot be legally diluted with wool. And if a garment says 20 per cent cashmere, then it should contain that exact amount of fibre.
It is now possible to pick up well-made cashmere tops or wraps in a riot of jewel and pastel colours which will add a touch of class to any wardrobe. And you can even scoop one into your shopping trolley along with the weekly groceries. And if you do, treat your purchases just the same way as you would everything else: check the label to make sure you are getting the real thing.
MyVillage 15th August
|
