Cashmere

Cashmere Suit Fabric: what it actually is

Cashmere comes from the soft undercoat that cashmere goats grow for winter, primarily in Mongolia, northern China and Iran. In spring the goats moult, and the down is combed out by hand rather than sheared.

The raw fleece contains both the fine down and much coarser guard hairs, which have to be separated in a process called dehairing. Only the down is cashmere.

A single goat yields around 150 to 200 grams of usable fibre per year. An overcoat needs the annual production of several animals. That, more than any branding, is why it costs what it does.

Fine and short

Two properties explain everything about how cashmere behaves.

Fineness. Cashmere fibres are roughly 14 to 19 microns in diameter, against 20 to 25 for good merino wool. Fine fibres bend easily when they touch skin instead of resisting and prickling, which is why cashmere feels the way it does. Fineness also means more fibres per unit weight, trapping more air, which is why it is warmer than wool for its weight.

Shortness. Cashmere fibres are much shorter than wool. Short fibres have more ends, and those ends work loose under friction and tangle on the surface into pills. This is inherent and unavoidable.

So the softness and the pilling have the same cause. You cannot have one without the other.

Where it works

Cashmere belongs in outerwear and knitwear. An overcoat is the classic use: it is worn over other clothing, it benefits from warmth without weight, and its collar touches the neck where softness is most appreciated.

In suiting it appears mostly as a small percentage blended into wool, adding softness and a subtle halo without sacrificing structure. A pure cashmere suit is a soft cloth, and soft cloth drapes rather than holding a sharp line, so it works against tailored structure.

The blend is usually right

For anything worn regularly, 10 to 30 percent cashmere in a wool base is the sensible specification.

You get a noticeable lift in hand where you actually touch the garment, at the collar and cuff, while wool provides the resilience, weather resistance and shape retention. A blend coat also holds its line better than pure cashmere.

Care

Brush with a soft clothes brush after wearing to lift surface dirt and settle the fibres.

Use a cashmere comb or a fabric shaver on pills rather than pulling them, which drags more fibre out of the yarn. Hang on a wide wooden hanger. Dry clean rarely.

Store folded rather than hung for knitwear, and always clean before storing, since moths are attracted to soiled protein fibres rather than clean ones.