So I'm playing with another idea for this day of the week; I would like to spend the post talking about a particular fabric, since I could use brush-up on natural and the human-made materials.
This week the focus is on cashmere, although I will say that I don't own a single cashmere item. Hmm...
I started thinking about cashmere when I was folding some sweaters at work; it's such a soft, fuzzy-but-strong feeling material.
It turns out that it comes from cashmere goats (surprise!), which produce a double fleece; the undercoat is fine and soft, but its mixed in with the "guard hair", which is thicker and stiffer. It needs to be mechanically separated by special machinery, before it can be dyed. "Pure cashmere" is the fleece that has been separated, but also cleaned of all animal byproducts. Yum! The U.S. Wool Products Labeling Act of 1939 (I am not kidding you) declared that in order for something to be labeled as cashmere, it had to meet these guidelines:
- such wool product is the fine (dehaired) undercoat fibers produced by a cashmere goat (Capra hircus laniger);
- the average diameter of the fiber of such wool product does not exceed 19 microns; and
- such wool product does not contain more than 3 percent (by weight) of cashmere fibers with average diameters that exceed 30 microns.
- The average fiber diameter may be subject to a coefficient of variation around the mean that shall not exceed 24 percent.[1]
Cashmere shawls have been made in Nepal and Cashmir for thousands of years, Western civilization jumped on this excellent insulator late in the game. India, by the way, is the largest producer of cashmere.
There's your Material Monday lesson, my fashion bambinos. Thanks for tuning in!!
K.Q.
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