About Cashmere Fibers

Cashmere is the fine undercoat of the cashmere goat, an animal bred for centuries in the high, cold regions of Central Asia. Beneath a coarse outer coat of guard hair, the goat grows a layer of exceptionally fine, soft down that keeps it alive through bitter winters. That down — collected, cleaned of guard hair and spun — is the cashmere of sweaters, scarves and luxury knitwear.

Everything about cashmere pricing follows from arithmetic. One goat yields only a few ounces of usable down in a year, the fibers are very fine and relatively short, and separating the down from the guard hair is slow work. A fiber that takes a herd to supply and a careful mill to process will never be cheap, which is why cashmere sits at the top of the knitwear price ladder alongside vicuna and fine alpaca.

Combing, Dehairing and Grading

Cashmere down is collected in spring, when goats naturally shed their winter coat. In traditional production the down is combed out by hand; in some regions the fleece is shorn and sorted instead. The raw material then goes through dehairing, a mechanical process that lifts out the coarse guard hairs and leaves the fine down behind. Dehairing quality is the heart of cashmere quality — down contaminated with guard hair spins into a yarn that feels harsh and pills quickly.

Graders judge cashmere by fineness and staple length. Finer, longer down spins into stronger, smoother yarn that resists pilling better than short, coarse lots. Because the differences are invisible in a finished sweater photo, reputable spinners buy on measured fiber lots, and garment makers who care about longevity specify both the fineness and the length of the cashmere in their yarn, not just the word cashmere on the label.

Warmth, Softness and Weaknesses

Cashmere insulates far beyond its weight: the fine fibers trap still air in a dense web, so a thin cashmere sweater can out-warm a much bulkier garment. The hand is smooth and almost buttery, with none of the prickle that coarser animal fibers can give against the neck. Those qualities made cashmere the classic fiber for twinsets, cardigans, scarves, gloves, baby blankets and fine shawls.

The weaknesses are real. Short, fine fibers abrade faster than wool, cashmere knits can pill in high-friction areas, and moths treat it as food, so storage matters. Care is gentle washing, drying flat, and resting a garment between wears so the fibers recover. Blending a small share of longer cashmere or fine wool into the yarn is one honest way mills improve durability without giving up the soft hand.

Cashmere in the Market

The historic home of the fiber is Kashmir, which gave cashmere its English name, and the great producing regions today are the high plateaus of Mongolia, China, Iran and Afghanistan, with spinning and knitting concentrated in a handful of specialist mills worldwide. When comparing suppliers, the useful questions are about dehairing, fiber length and ply — how many yarn strands are twisted together — rather than about marketing words. A tightly knitted two-ply garment in long-staple cashmere will outlast a loosely knitted one-ply garment by years.