Textile
Cashmere
Honouring our founder’s legacy of thread, the Group has fostered close relationships with the most prestigious cashmere producers in Inner Mongolia. The uniform fibres produce strong, fine fabrics, that hold shape well and provide superior warmth. The result is one of the world’s finest raw materials, one of superlative softness.
Cashmere is a particularly rare and precious fibre. In fact, annual world production of cashmere is only five million kilograms. The soft, downy fabric is woven from the winter undercoats of Kashmir goats, a collection of species that hails from the Himalayan region of Kashmir. The long, fine filaments are developed by the animals to keep warm under the harshest conditions. Inner Mongolian cashmere is particularly prized given the severe cold weather of the highlands that the goats inhabit. The cashmere from this region is particularly outstanding because the fibres’ fineness (14 - 15 µ), their length and uniformity and for the particularly soft handle they give.
To protect themselves from the cold, Kashmir goats have two coats: one that is bulky and superficial and another closer to the body known as the duvet, which consists of a short, fine very warm down. In springtime, shepherds collect the wool manually using special combs with long teeth. The fibres of the two coats are then separated, as only the duvet makes real cashmere.