The Cashmere

Cashmere owes its name to a rare goat breed called Kashmir, raised on the plateaus of Mongolia, China, Tibet and Iran, from whose fleece the precious fibre is derived.

Already from antiquity, the qualities of this kind of yarn were appreciated by few but, thanks to the introduction of special machinery in the 19th century, it became possible to separate the finest, and therefore more valuable, fibres from the rough raw hairs.

Only the undercoat, which grows from mid-summer until the end of winter is harvested manually by combing out and from each goat only approximately 150g of fleece is obtained.

Not everyone knows that cashmere is a precious ally in all seasons, in the winter as well as in the cool summer evenings.

This type of yarn, in fact, does not only have the property of "heating" as you would normally think but, rather, it isolates.

It has this extraordinary feature of a sort of air chamber housed inside the fibre that promotes effective thermal insulation not only from the cold but also from the heat.

How to treat pilling
The use of a cashmere garment causes the appearance of the so-called "pilling", that is, the formation of micro surface balls.

Contrary to what you might think, this is not an index of poor quality, but this actually due to the process: to ensure a soft and smooth finish, the cashmere is handled in a way as to bring the thinner fibre on the outside.

 

Any kind of rubbing will cause pilling on the surface. Pilling should occur only once. In this case, a special brush can be used to remove the bobbles, which should leesen with use.