The real cost of Cashmere

Cashmere. Soft as a sigh, warm as a sunlit window, light enough to forget you’re wearing it. It’s the all-season knit we instinctively reach for, the shorthand for quiet luxury. In the 19th century, a cashmere shawl from India cost a working man their annual salary. Imported to the UK by the East India Company, it became a symbol of refinement and indulgence. Today, you can buy cashmere for as little as Rs 5,000 to as high as Rs 2 lakh. Brunello Cucinelli sells sweaters for over $2,300 (Rs 2,11,033). Loro Piana offers an exceptionally fine cashmere sweater made from Capra Hircus goat kids (less than a year old) for £2,420 (Rs 2,59,620). Meanwhile, those at Uniqlo (Rs 4,000 – Rs 10,000), Zara (Rs 8,000 – Rs 13,000) and Quince (Rs 4,591) are comparatively cheaper. Despite the jaw-dropping prices, the global appetite for cashmere shows no sign of slowing. According to Grand View Research, the market was valued at $2.80 billion in 2023 and is projected to reach $4.24 billion by 2030. But even as demand rises, so does lack of clarity over the quality of the product. What exactly are we paying for? The answer lies in something most of us never see: the fibre itself and the long journey from goat to garment. “Cashmere starts at Rs 8,000–9,000. If someone is selling it for Rs 1,500 online, people should understand immediately, it’s not cashmere,” warns Abdul Ghani, who runs a wool mill in Kashmir.Cashmere takes its name from Kashmir The word comes from Kashmir, the Himalayan valley that transformed a humble goat fibre into a global luxury. In 19th-century Europe, “cashmere wool” referred to the soft fabric used in the region’s famed shawls. Over time, the place name simply became the fibre. The shawls were woven in Kashmir, but the fibre’s journey began further north. The raw material, pashm, is the ultra-fine undercoat of Capra hircus (Changthangi) goats raised on the high plateaus of Tibet and Ladakh. For centuries, traders carried it through Ladakh into the Kashmir Valley, where master weavers turned it into shawls prized in royal courts. By the 19th century, cashmere had become a European obsession. Napoleon Bonaparte famously gifted his second wife seventeen cashmere shawls, fuelling a fashion craze across France. Despite its fame, cashmere remains rare. It accounts for less than 1% of the world’s fibre production – about 20,000–25,000 metric tonnes a year. China produces about 60%, followed by Mongolia, while Kashmir and Ladakh remain synonymous with the finest handwoven pashmina.Born in brutal winters Cashmere comes from the undercoat of goats that survive brutal winters in Mongolia, Tibet, and Ladakh. Temperatures can dip to minus 30 degrees for months. “The harsher the winter, the finer the undercoat the animal grows to protect itself,” shares Varun Kumar, founder of Pashmina.com. The fineness of Cashmere is measured in microns. The lower the micron count, the softer the fibre. Ghani has observed this transformation closely for decades. “People think cashmere is just about softness,” he says. “But softness depends on fibre length, micron count, and how gently it is processed. If you rush spinning or finishing, you damage what nature created.” Even a plain handwoven shawl, he says, takes eight to ten days. Embroidered heirloom pieces? Months. Sometimes years. “The more handcrafted the process, the more expensive it gets,” adds Varun. “Pricing is largely determined by time.” That, in many ways, is the real dividing line between Rs 8,000 and Rs 80,000 cashmere sweater. When the label misleadsToday, you can buy a cashmere in a mall for the price of dinner. So, what has changed? Blends are one reason. While luxury houses such as Loro Piana and Brunello Cucinelli built empires on technical finesse – careful washing, slow spinning, meticulous finishing, many high-street versions contain 5-30% cashmere, mixed with other types of wool, nylon or acrylic. Legally, they can be labelled “cashmere blends”, but it can mislead consumers. “You can tell just by holding it,” says Abdul Ghani. “There is a big difference between cashmere and blended cashmere. The softness, the warmth, it’s very different.” He adds that dyeing is often the giveaway. “If you mix cashmere with synthetic fibres and dye it, the colour won’t come out evenly. You’ll see double shades. Pure cashmere takes colour evenly.” In India, the Geographical Indication (GI) tag is trying to restore trust. It identifies goods originating from a specific location and having distinct nature, quality, and characteristics linked to that location. “The QR code (on GI-tagged product) now tells you the micron, whether it was hand-spun, even whether the embroidery thread is silk or cotton,” says Varun. A plain GI-tagged Indian pashmina shawl (all pashmina is cashmere) costs around Rs 13,000–14,000. “Even without a GI tag, it cannot be Rs 2,000,” Ghani says firmly. “The GI tag gives satisfaction. It’s a symbol of purity.” Longevity is a luxury Your investment in quality cashmere doesn’t end when you tap your credit card and leave the store. In fact, it has just begun. Even the finest cashmere demands care. Hand wash in cool water or use a delicate cycle. Lay it flat to dry. Store folded with cedar blocks, never on hangers.“We still see shawls that are 30 or 40 years old, and they look as if they were just bought. People used to care for them,” recalls Ghani. “You cannot wash it casually. If you put it in the washing machine or use too much soap, it will shrink.”Fast fashion has conditioned consumers to expect lower prices and faster cycles, and to accept lower-quality products. Cashmere for all seasonsCashmere once appeared only when temperatures dropped. Now it shows up in July. Luxury stores sell cashmere T-shirts, sleeveless shells and whisper-thin knits styled for summer, often in cotton-cashmere blends worn with linen or light layers. The fibre has clearly moved beyond the snow-globe season. But is there really such a thing as summer cashmere? “There is no such thing. That’s marketing,” says Varun. “Brands simply blend cashmere with cotton, silk, hemp or acrylic.” Pure cashmere is naturally insulating; lighter summer versions rely on ultra-fine knits or blends. Silk adds sheen, cotton breathability – sometimes with just enough cashmere to justify the label.Other expensive woolsMerino WoolSourced from Merino sheep raised largely in Australia and New Zealand, it is often seen as a more affordable alternative to cashmere. Its fibres are finer than traditional wool, which makes it comfortable against the skin. Unlike cashmere goats, which yield small amounts of undercoat once a year through combing, Merino sheep are shorn annually, producing far larger volumes of fibre.Vicuña woolOften considered the pinnacle of luxury fibres, vicuña wool comes from the wild vicuña that lives high in the Andes Mountains in Peru. The fibre is exceptionally fine, measuring about 12 microns, which makes it softer than cashmere. Each animal produces only about half a kilogram of wool a year, making vicuña extremely rare, light and remarkably warm. A vicuña coat from Lora Piana can fetch $25,000.ShahtooshYou can’t buy shahtoosh! You can’t sell it! Shahtoosh, once considered the ultimate luxury shawl, was made from the ultra-fine underfur of the chiru, a Tibetan antelope. So delicate that a shawl could pass through a ring. But because the animals must be killed to obtain the fibre, shahtoosh has been banned globally since 1975, when the species was declared endangered.