Cashmere is a precious and particularly comfortable fabric, nowadays widely used in the textile sector thanks to its distinctive characteristics. It has spread in Europe since the nineteenth century but has a thousand-year history. It is said that Marco Polo, along the Silk Road, discovered in the caves of Mongolia the representations of some wild goats. He deduced that in distant times there were already farms from which the fabric used by shepherds to face the very harsh winters of Central Asia was obtained.
The origins of cashmere
The name cashmere comes from Kashmir, a region divided between India, Pakistan and China. In this area the breeding lives of rituals, such as transhumance, imposed by the extreme climatic conditions that are repeated since ancient times. The torrid summers alternate winters in which the temperature can go thirty or forty degrees below zero, influencing in a decisive way the quality of the fiber produced by the goats.
Specifically, cashmere is obtained from hircus goats, smaller than the European relatives. To adapt to the climate, they have developed a mantle whose fibers have an internal "air chamber". This acts as a natural thermal insulator, a mechanism that now inspires several synthetic fibers.
Cashmere from a controlled supply chain
At Nicki Colombo we pay great attention to the sustainability of the fabrics we use for knitwear and accessories. For this reason, we only use cashmere obtained from a controlled chain: to ensure respect for animals and the environment, the controlled chain provides a fiber traceability that starts from the farmer and arrives at the finished product with controls at each stage.
It is important to point out that goats are combed and not sheared in the production chain, an ethical choice that increases production costs but guarantees a greater well-being of the animal who will live this experience as a phase of natural detachment.
Subsequently, the obtained filaments are carefully selected. The cashmere used in the production of knitwear and luxury accessories is in fact obtained only from the duvet, that is the part of the fleece more soft and warm, closer to the skin.
The sustainability of cashmere is also guaranteed by the high durability of this fabric, which if stored and washed properly can be preserved for a long time and become increasingly soft. Cashmere can also be recycled to create new sweaters and accessories adhering to the concept of circular fashion, according to which you can create a material with the same quality of the original while safeguarding our planet.
Discover in the shop section our cashmere sweaters and accessories, or learn more about this precious fabric by reading the other articles from our blog.
