| The
warmest and most luxurious of all the animal fibers, finer
even than the best merino wool, comes principally from a
Central Asian Species of the mountain goat, the cashmere
or shawl goat, Capra hircus. The name is misleading for
although the cashmere shawls, which made the name famous,
were woven in Kashmir the fiber came from goats in Tibet
and Central Asia. In Nepal the shawls woven from cashmere
hair are referred to as Pashmina shawls, "Pashm"
being the Persian word for 'wool'. Persian goat fibers although
much coarser than the true cashmere, are sometimes marketed
as cashmere, they are in use for Nepalese and Indian shawls.
As
the Pashmina shawls have become a major trade item in the
Kathmandu Valley, where the fibers are brought from Tibet,
processed and woven, while mixing the fiber with low quality
wool and yet tagged as pashmina. In fact a number of cashmere
goats are found in some of the northernmost parts of Nepal,
for example Mustang. In some areas these cashmere goats
are crossed with the local breed. This has increased their
milk yield but unfortunately has adversely affected their
fiber production: even the pure-bred goat will provide little
more than 110 gm (3.6 oz) per year of the soft white, gray
or buff-colored down, which is found under the long, coarse
outer hair. This down is combed out during the spring. It
may also be shed naturally at this time and be rubbed off
by the animal against the rocks and shrubs, from where it
can be collected. But the supply is meager.
Cashmere
down has been a valuable trade item for centuries between
Tibet and Kashmir. Hence, the monopoly of the trade was
fiercely guarded by the smart Kashmerian.
Today,
we Potala Group – a home grown company have started
collecting and manufacturing variety of items out of the
finest Tibetan Cashmere collected from wild, which is of
course very rare in the existing international market.
Our
productions can meet variety of demands on the basis of
items but the production of the Cashmere solely depends
on nature. |