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Cashmere has been hijacked by fast fashion – so be careful what you buy | Jess Cartner-Morley
Inferior sweaters can lose their shape, and cashmere can be problematic for animal welfare – but there are well-priced, quality and sustainable brands out there
Mmm, cashmere. So soft and fluffy, right? As warm as toast, as light as bubble bath. What’s not to love? A lot, actually. It turns out we are doing it wrong. Which is a bit of a shock, since cashmere has been one of the high street fashion success stories of our times. Just the word – cashmere – has become a brand name, a status symbol in its own right. Like Häagen-Dazs or Chanel No 5, everyone loves cashmere. Retailers, having identified the killer shelf appeal of a neat stack of marshmallow-soft sweaters in M&M colours as a weakness – one that can trigger an impulse purchase of a box-fresh lemon-yellow cardi, when you only popped into the store for a pair of tights – have enabled our cashmere habit.
The thing is, cashmere can be problematic for sustainability and for animal welfare. A yarn once prized for its durability has been hijacked by fast fashion, damaging farming practices in ways that cause unnecessary suffering to goats, and creating inferior sweaters that wear out or lose shape. Like an egg-white omelette, cheap cashmere is whipped up from scant ingredients into something that looks good but is insubstantial.
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