How Your Cashmere Is Made

One of the rarest natural fibers in the world, cashmere's not a wool but a hair, which accounts for its unmistakable feel. With fast-fashion chains such as Uniqlo and Joe Fresh selling discount product in bulk, it's hard to tell the good stuff from the junk

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By Maura Walters

September 17, 2015 at 12:00 PM UTC

This article is for subscribers only.

Most cashmere comes from goats in the Gobi Desert, which stretches from Northern China into Mongolia. Beneath the animals’ coarse hair lies an undercoat of superfine fibers concentrated on the underbelly. In May and June, when the goats molt, local workers comb the belly hair, sort it by hand, and send it to a dehairing facility (usually in China) to be cleaned and refined. Then it’s baled and delivered to Europe, where it’s spun into fine yarn and sold to designers for roughly $114 a pound. With adequate supplies of top-notch raw materials becoming scarce in Asia, Afghanistan has become an unlikely exporter: The country is rich in unadulterated product. As China increasingly blends different qualities of cashmere to achieve volume, Afghan goat farmers are filling the demand for completely pure knits.

Origin: Northern China, Mongolia, Afghanistan
Average weight: females, 88 lbs.; males, 132 lbs.
Typical yield of fiber from one goat: 180g to 250g (6 oz. to 9 oz.)