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December, 2012

What makes cashmere so expensive?

The expensive production process and scarcity make cashmere much pricier than wool.

I've always kind of wondered what made cashmere so much more expensive than wool other than the fact it's softer. Slate has an answer:

Its costly production process and scarcity. Cashmere comes from the soft undercoat of goats bred to produce the wool. It takes more than two goats to make a single two-ply sweater. The fibers of the warming undercoat must be separated from a coarser protective top coat during the spring molting season, a labor-intensive process that typically involves combing and sorting the hair by hand. These factors contribute to the relatively low global production rate of cashmere—approximately 30,000 pounds a year compared to about 3 billion pounds of sheep’s wool.
So there you have it. Undercoats is the answer.
December 28, 2012
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