Pashmina
 | Pashmina refers to a type of cashmere wool and textiles made from it. The name comes from Pashmineh, made from Persian pashm. This wool comes from changthangi or pashmina goat a special breed of goat indigenous to high atitudes of the Himalayas. The wool has been used for thousands of years to make high-quality shawls that also bear the same name. The goat sheds its winter coat every spring and the fleece is caught on thorn bushes. One goat sheds approximately 3-8 ounces of the fiber. Villagers would scour the mountainside for the finest fleece to be used. Cashmere shawls have been manufactured in Kashmir and Nepal for thousands of years. The test for a quality pashmina has been warmth, feel and the passing of the shawl through a wedding ring. |
| Pashmina is an indigenous Nepali word which only became popular after the so-named shawls, woven in Nepal, started being popular in the west. What are commonly thought of as pashminas have their origin in Nepal, where the people have a cultural heritage of hand-weaving pashmina shawls with the well-known fringing and hand dyeing.
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| To meet the demands of cashmere lovers, the goats are now commercially reared in the Gobi Desert area in Inner and Outer Mongolia. The region has identical harsh weather conditions to those of the Himalayan region, and is thereby apt for the goats to grow this inner wool, but also has acres of grazing ground to produce cashmere economically and commercially. During spring (molting meason), the goats shed this inner wool, which they grow all over again during the course of the winter. The inner wool is collected and spun to produce cashmere. The quality is just as high, while the costs have become more reasonable as a result. (source:wikipedia) | |
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