Cashmere garments

Posted on

Fall is getting closer and it is about time to start thinking about heavier clothes, sweaters, overcoat, boots and so on. One garment I really love wearing during the cold season is a cashmere sweater.

Nowadays every brand proposes cashmere sweaters but not all the sweaters are alike. I bought so called cashmere sweaters for 50, 70, 100 euro but if you shop at Ballantyne,  Loro Piana or Piacenza stores the prices are way higher and as a logical consequence the quality is much better. The question is WHY?

The sensation to wear a cashmere sweater is softness, warmness and lightness .

Here is a little bit of history of cashmere wool: Cashmere is the name given to a woolen fabric made from the wool of the Kashimir goat ( capra hircus). The original  colours of cashmere are various shades of  gray, brown and white. These goats have two fleeces: the guard coat and the under coat, the last one is soft and it is used to make garments.

The harvest of the wool occurs from March to May every year and this process can take up to 2 weeks. Each goat produces around 300 grams a year. (this is why cashmere has high costs).

The best quality cashmere comes from the underbelly and throat of the goat even if the rest of the wool is stil used to make cashmere garments.

Also when buying a cashmere sweater, check if the sleeve seams are of natural colour or same colour of the sweater . If they are white, it means that the sweater was made with white wool colour and then dyed (cheaper process) while if they are colored the wool was dyed first and then the garment was made (more expensive process). It is more difficult to dyed the wool thread than a garment ( the thread breaks easily).

 

0 Comments

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published.

5 × 2 =