Annotations - luxury cashmere

Not only have we made the perfect sweater and designed unique styles, but we did it all so we could give back and change the way we (meaning you!) define what ‘luxury fashion’ should really mean.

Cardigan 100% cashmere by EDELZIEGE. The brand insists on sustainability of  the chosen resources and an intentional dissociation from mass manufacturing.

(small-run production)

From the page footer: Luxiders is the New Intelligent Luxury Magazine, based on eco & ethical stories about fashion, design and lifestyle. This online magazine fuses the best high-end, progressive and luxury brands as well as independent designers.

(luxury as "progressive") #sustainability-taste ("intelligent luxury" connected to "eco & ethical"). The article includes a series of images of sustainable products: "organic fair-trade cotton", "organic cotton from Portuguese dead stock found in Barcelona", "100% cashmere by ethical luxury brand EDELZIEGE", "bedlace, produced ethicaly in Italy", a dress "embroidered by hand with care", "organic cotton, GOTS certified", etc.

Exclusive water repellent cashmere coat with cashmere flakes padding: traditional down is replaced by premium cashmere flakes, ensuring maximum warmth and incredible softness

See also other resources on cashmere flakes. This coat costs $6,995!

Management consulting company Bain & Company previously calculated that cashmere makes up $4 billion of the $60 billion luxury market, so there's no denying the demand for this sought-after luxury material. With this number only increasing, there is justified concern for how sustainable a material cashmere is.

They're making the sweaters that last, that really are passed down from generation to generation." For Shah, Scotland and Italy's meticulous techniques for spinning, knitting and weaving cannot be found elsewhere. "They also take a lot of pride," she says. "I know that's a really soft metric, but you can tell with factories when they're actually familyowned and they're working with their clients and they take very few clients."

Historically, cashmere has always been luxurious. Cashmere has been aspirational. Cashmere has been timeless. Cashmere has been an investment. But in the last decade, cashmere has been "disrupted" much in the same way that eyewear or fine jewelry or skin care have.

Representative of H&M Asia Sherry Gu said, “Some large scale international brands have recently begun to stop production that is not environmentally friendly and violates animal rights. However, this does not mean that cashmere products will come to a complete halt. We are ready to purchase cashmere at a high price from Mongolia if it is prepared in a sustainable way, such as being environmentally friendly, and taken from healthy livestock without child labor.

(high price)

Take, for instance Loro Piana – the family founded, LVMH-owned cashmere brand that has made its name selling £1,500 sweaters to the world’s most tasteful plutocrats. Not only is the label’s output incredibly small, due to the rarefied nature of its fondle-friendly sweaters, shirt jackets and knitted polos, but the way in which the cashmere fibres are sourced from Mongolia’s hulking, be-horned capra hircus goats is as carbon neutral as it’s possible to get. Very little machinery is used in the process, the land required is minimal and the number of said goats that even exist minute.

It’s a widely held myth that the luxury industry is one of the greatest contributors to the world’s environmental crisis. Fashion, taken as a whole, is problematic, sure, but at the highest echelons of ultra-elevated luxury, sustainability has been an integral part of the vernacular for decades.

Counter-argument to the #ecological-degradation frame

Homeware brand makes the cosiest throws and blankets, all of which are produced in four ply cashmere, which is super luxurious. “Our pure cashmere is sourced from the Upper Mustang region of Nepal where the mountain goats are few in numbers and live at high altitude,” says Rachel Bates, the brand’s CEO and founder. Because temperatures there drop so low, the goats grow warmer and softer coats. After collecting the fibres in the warmest months, they are washed and spun into yarn. That yarn is then dyed, hand woven, and finished. “Beautiful borders are then added by our highly skilled craftsmen and woman amidst the beautiful, lush foothills of the Himalayas using traditional methods,” Rachel adds. She also says customers sometimes inquire about the price of her cashmere pieces. She explains that because its sustainably and ethically sourced, and the incredible softness the process produces, people quickly come to understand.

(price premium)

There’s nothing quite like the soft touch of cashmere on your skin. It’s hard to imagine that the impossibly soft material is made from anything besides the threads of clouds and rainbows ― and it’s usually so expensive that you’d believe it if it were. But do you actually know what it’s made from? Shockingly, it’s not clouds or rainbows. It is made from goats. Yes, you read that correctly. Cashmere comes from cashmere goats,

This passage is of interest as it conveys an expectation that the reader is probably familiar with cashmere as a luxury product, but has little or no knowledge of its origins. The article draws on information from American producers but does not touch on Mongolia and China, other than to note that most cashmere sold by major retailers is imported.

Herders can also sort their fibre into different quality categories such as age, gender, and quality. Processors are often willing to pay more for sorted fibre, and it allows herders to get premium prices for their high-quality fibre. Moving to lower yields of high-quality fibre is fundamental to the overall sustainability of Mongolian cashmere and it will help raise the profile of our cashmere to international buyers.

It takes several months to a year for highly skilled artisans to work their magic on wooden looms and weave a masterpiece, which will be exported around the world and sold for up to $2,000 (£1,500) by luxury retailers

See the accompanying illustrations. "Changpa women, who have given up the nomadic herding life, spend much of their time weaving." This is distinct from the Mongolian and Inner Mongolian context, in which production is entirely industrialized.