Our Cashmere
Behind every garment that we design, there is the fine work of detailed technicians who select only the best fibre from the Cocoa Farm goats that meets our strict criteria.
Our Cashmere Fibre Sets Our Quality Apart
Not all cashmere is created equal. We believe that the highest quality cashmere garment is the one that most comfortably adapts to your body shape and feels softer against your skin with each wash. This all starts with the cashmere fibre quality.
Cashmere quality is determined by three key features:
Fibre Diameter: The finer the fibre, the softer and floatier the cashmere material. Cashmere fibre is typically between 15 and 19 microns.
Fibre Length: The longer the fibre, the more resistant and durable the garment will be. Longer fibres will also generate less pilling. Cashmere fibre lengths range from 28 to 42 millimetres.
Bright Colour Purity: Cashmere should be free from impurities and contamination to ensure that it can be dyed into a range of colours with the minimum negative impact that colouring has on its softness.
The below table shows our requirements we look for when it comes to selecting the best cashmere:
|
Cashmere Quality |
Cocoa Cashmere Fibre |
|
Fibre Diameter |
15.0 microns |
|
Fibre Length |
38 millimetres |
|
Bright Colour Purity |
Maximum of 1 dark hair strand |
In order to achieve our strict fibre quality demands that goes into every Cocoa Cashmere garment, we hold a long standing relationship with the goat herders of the Cocoa Farm.
We source all our fibre directly from the Cocoa Farm in Inner Mongolia
Every garment from Cocoa Cashmere London originates from the Cocoa Farm, a collective of 78 herding families located in Alashan (also know as Alxa League), the Western-most province of Inner Mongolia. Alashan’s steppe climate is unique to producing consistently high quality cashmere goat fibre. The region is landlocked and surrounded by mountains which creates a largely arid landscape.
However, snowmelt from the mountains form a large number of oases, which allow for farming communities to easily source clean drinking water. The goats in Alashan are known for their whiteness, fine fibre and hardiness towards the extreme temperatures. Whilst they yield less fibre than most cashmere goats produced outside of this region, we pride ourselves on using our Alashan goats at Cocoa Farm as this allows us to produce our colourful garments without compromising their vibrancy.
The availability of oasis water, freezing winters and blazing summers in Alashan allow our goats to grow a thick, soft and consistent fibres underneath their outer coat. These fine fibres trap the air and thus reduce heat loss - a quality which Cocoa Cashmere garment retains just as well. These locations also facilitate the growth of salt-tolerant shrub species, saxaul, which cashmere goats love to both feed on and use as shade against the baking sun.
Each spring when the climate gets milder, cashmere goats naturally begin shedding their thicker winter undercoat, and so cashmere farmers comb using a traditional and cruelty-free method of combing the goats to obtain and gather this fibre.
Each goat is carefully combed using this patient and manual process which ensures that we can obtain the softest and whitest fibre and ensures that the goat can comfortably regrow its undercoat after the hot Summer months (and turn into soft Cocoa Cashmere garments in the new year).
It all starts with love - for our animals and our herders
Our incredible goats and their soft cashmere undercoats would mean little if they were not complemented by the experience of our invaluable herders at the Cocoa Farm.
Their love and the attention towards their goats inspires us to put equal care towards their welfare - that is why we support our herders by providing food, animal feed and funding for building shelters during the harsh Winter months when temperatures average to minus 20 degrees Celsius at night.
By closely working together with our herders, we also ensure that their Inner Mongolian culture and herding traditions are preserved.
We ensure every garment meets our quality standards through strict guidelines with our production
To be as careful with our quality requirements as possible, we do not use any intermediaries to process our cashmere. Instead, we process everything in our factory which gives us full control over the production process and ensures that quality always comes first.
We have a unique responsibility to produce cashmere sustainably
Being sustainable is at the core of our business - from animal welfare, though labourers’ conditions to environment protection, we need to do everything right to meet Cocoa Cashmere’s quality standards. Our direct involvement in each step of the cashmere production chain means that we have a unique responsibility to ensure that the welfare of every animal and person that goes behind the production of a Cocoa Cashmere garment is continuously improved in a transparent manner.