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Cashmere wool, usually simply known as cashmere, is a fiber obtained from , Changthangi, and some other breeds of goat. It has been used to make yarn, textiles and clothing for hundreds of years. Cashmere is closely associated with the Kashmir shawl, the word "cashmere" deriving from an anglicization of Kashmir, when the Kashmir shawl reached Europe in the 19th century. Both the soft undercoat and the may be used; the softer hair is reserved for textiles, while the coarse guard hair is used for brushes and other non-apparel purposes. Cashmere is a hygroscopic fiber, absorbing and releasing water from the air based on the surrounding environment. This helps regulate the body in both warm and cool temperatures.
A number of countries produce cashmere and have improved processing techniques over the years, but China and Mongolia are two of the leading producers as of 2019. Afghanistan is ranked third.
Some yarns and clothing marketed as containing cashmere have been found to contain little to no cashmere fiber, so more stringent testing has been requested to ensure items are fairly represented. Poor land management and overgrazing to increase production of the valuable fiber has resulted in the decimation and transformation of grasslands into deserts in Asia, increasing local temperatures and causing air pollution which has traveled as far as Canada and the United States.
In some regions, the mixed mass of down and coarse hair is removed by hand with a coarse comb that pulls tufts of fiber from the animal as the comb is raked through the fleece. Fiber collected by this method has a higher yield of pure cashmere, after it has been washed and dehaired, than does fiber produced by shearing. The long, coarse guard hair is then typically clipped from the animal and is often used for brushes, and other non-apparel uses. Animals in Iran, Afghanistan, New Zealand, and Australia are typically shorn of their fleece, resulting in a higher coarse hair content and lower pure cashmere yield. In the United States, the most popular method is combing. The process takes up to two weeks, but with a trained eye for when the fiber is releasing, it is possible to comb the fibers out in about a week. The term "baby cashmere" is used for fibers harvested from younger goats, and is reputed to be softer.
Pure cashmere can be dyed and spun into yarns and knitted into Sweater (sweaters), , , and other clothing, or woven into and then cut and assembled into garments such as outer coats, , trousers (pants), pajamas, scarf, , and other items. Fabric and garment producers in Scotland, Italy, and Japan have long been known as market leaders. Cashmere may also be blended with other fibers to bring the garment cost down, or to gain their properties, such as elasticity from wool, or sheen from silk.
The town of Uxbridge, Massachusetts, in the United States was an incubator for the cashmere wool industry. It had the first power looms for woolens and the first manufacture of "". Capron Mill had the first power looms, in 1820. It burned on July 21, 2007, in the Bernat Mill fire.
In the United States, under the U.S. Wool Products Labeling Act of 1939, as amended, (15 U. S. Code Section 68b(a)(6)), a wool or textile product may be labelled as containing cashmere only if the following criteria are met:
The global fashion luxury cashmere clothing market is expected to reach US$4.2 billion in 2025, growing at an annual rate of 3.86% per year between 2018 and 2025.
Trading in commercial quantities of raw cashmere between Asia and Europe began with Valerie Audresset SA, Louviers, France, claiming to be the first European company to commercially spin cashmere. The down was imported from Tibet through Kazan, the capital of the Russian province of Volga, and was used in France to create imitation woven shawls. Unlike the Kashmir shawls, the French shawls had a different pattern on each side. The imported cashmere was spread out on large sieves and beaten with sticks to open the fibers and clear away the dirt. After opening, the cashmere was washed and children removed the coarse hair. The down was then carded and combed using the same methods used for worsted spinning.Newton, W. (1836). The London Journal of Arts and Sciences and Repertory of Arts And Sciences and Repertory of Patent Inventions. p.423.Gilroy, Clinton G. (1844). The Art of Weaving, by Hand and by Power, With an Introductory Account of Its Rise and Progress in Ancient and Modern Times. New York: George D. Baldwin. pp. 270–71.
In the 18th and early 19th centuries, Kashmir (then called cashmere by the British) had a thriving industry producing shawls from goat down imported from Tibet and Tartary through Ladakh. The down trade was controlled by treaties signed as a result of previous warsBell, James (1829). A System of Geography Popular and Scientific or a Physical, Political and Statistical Account of the World and Its Various Divisions. London. The Shawls were introduced into western Europe when General Napoleon Bonaparte sent one to Paris from his campaign in Ottoman Egypt. The shawl's arrival is said to have created an immediate sensation and plans were put in place to start manufacturing the product in France."Cashmere", The New American Cyclopedia, IV (1861), p.514.
In 1799 at his factory in Reims, William-Louis Ternaux, the leading woolens manufacturer in France under Napoleon, began to produce imitation India shawls ( cachemires) using the wool of Spanish merino sheep. By 1811, with government assistance, Ternaux also began experimenting with the production of real India shawls using what he called laine de Perse, i.e., the down ( duvet) of Tibetan-cashmere goats.Ternaux, William (1819). "Notice sur l'importation en France des chèvres à laine de cachemire, originaires du Thibet", Bulletin de la société pour l'industrie, XVIII. In 1818, Ternaux resolved to help establish herds of cashmere goats in France. A famous expedition to Persia was organized, led by the orientalist and diplomat Pierre Amédée Jaubert, to be financed in part by the French government. Of the acquired herd of 1,500 animals, only 256 arrived safely in the spring of 1819 at Marseilles and Toulon via the Crimea. About 100 of the cashmere goats were then purchased by the French government (at 2,000 francs each) and sent to the royal sheep farm at Perpignan. The remainder, about 180 including new-borns, went to Ternaux's property at Saint-Ouen outside Paris.Ternaux, William (1822). Recueil des pièces sur l'importation et naturalisation en France par MM. Ternaux et Jaubert des chèvres de race thibetaine, ou chèvres à duvet de Cachemire. Paris. Although Ternaux had little success getting small farmers to add cashmeres to their sheep herds, a few wealthy landowners were willing to experiment with the goats. For example, Ternaux's herd was seen in 1823 by C.T.Tower of Weald Hall, Essex, England. Tower purchased two female and two male goats and took them back to England, wherein 1828 he was awarded a gold medal by the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce for rearing a herd of cashmeres. Also, a few of Ternaux's goats were purchased for a model farm at Grignon, near Versailles, run by M. Polonceau. Polonceau crossbred the cashmeres with Angora goats to improve the down for spinning and weaving. This Cashmere-Angora herd was seen by William Riley of New South Wales in 1828, and again in 1831 when Riley purchased thirteen of the goats for trans-shipment to Australia. At the time, the average production of the Polonceau herd was 16 ounces (500 grams) of down. Ternaux's herd at St. Ouen still numbered 150 when the famous industrialist died in 1833. The herd at Perpignan died out by 1829.Southey, Thomas (1851). The Rise, Progress and Present State of Colonial Sheep & Wools. London: Effingham Wilson."On the Cashmere-Angora Shawl Goat", in American Journal of Science and Art, vol 25 (January 1834)"Cashmere Shawls, Part II", Saturday Magazine, Vol 19 (London 1841), 13–14.
By 1830, weaving cashmere shawls with French-produced yarn had become an important Scottish industry. The Scottish Board of Trustees for the Encouragement of Arts and Manufactures offered a 300 pound sterling reward to the first person who could spin cashmere in Scotland based on the French system. Captain Charles Stuart Cochrane collected the required information while in Paris and received a Scottish patent for the process in 1831. In the autumn of 1831, he sold the patent to Henry Houldsworth and sons of Glasgow. In 1832 Henry Houldsworth and sons commenced the manufacture of yarn, and in 1833 received the reward.
Dawson International claim to have invented the first commercial dehairing machine in 1890, and from 1906 they purchased cashmere from China, but were restricted to purchasing fiber from Beijing and Tianjin until 1978. In 1978 trade was liberalised and Dawson International began buying cashmere from many provinces.
Many early textile centers developed as part of the American Industrial Revolution. Among them, the Blackstone Valley became a major contributor to the American Industrial Revolution. The town of Uxbridge, Massachusetts, became an early textile center in the Blackstone Valley which was known for the manufacture of cashmere wool and satinets.
Austrian Textile Manufacturer Bernhard Altmann is credited with bringing cashmere to the United States of America on a mass scale beginning in 1947.
Attempts to improve Afghanistan's cashmere industry by importing Italian goats in the 2010s have been criticized as wasteful.
Air pollution, caused by the combination of industrial heavy burning of coal creating atmospheric particulates, and the desert dust storms resulting from disappearing grasslands in China and Mongolia, crosses the Pacific Ocean to the Americas. Health officials in Canada, China, Mongolia and the US have had to issue air quality warnings to the public.
The demand for the fiber has caused some vendors, both knowingly and not, to sell yarns or textiles containing little to no cashmere representing themselves as being composed of cashmere. Wool and other fibers have been mixed in by unscrupulous manufacturers, deliberately selling mislabeled items to well-known department stores. Complaints of mislabeling after testing for cashmere content were reported by the Cashmere and Camel Hair Manufacturers Institute to the Federal Trade Commission, leading to more stringent examination of cashmere products.
As part of achieving Cradle to Cradle "gold" certification for its clothing, in January 2023, fashion brand Ralph Lauren announced it would provide shipping labels to return cashmere clothes of any brand to be recycled by Re-Verso in Tuscany.
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