Pure Cashmere Pashminas

Brown

Pure cashmere pashminas shawls in an array of delicious colours. Stunningly soft, very fine grade cashmere Nepalese shawl collection. Handmade cashmere pashmina wraps, that are warm, yet so light and luxurious to wear.

Every cashmere pashmina is hand-loomed from the best quality fine, wonderfully soft, and warm cashmere. 

Our huge range of superb quality pashminas and cashmere wool scarves have all been created in Nepal, Mongolia, or India, in every conceivable colourway.

The word Pashmina comes from the Persian word Pashm or Pashmineh, meaning 'wool'. However, for many years it has been generally known as the finest wool (or downy hair) of certain breeds of goat, Capra Hircus, native to the Himalayas where the Nepalis, Kashmiris, Bhutanese, and Ladhakis have been creating cashmere pashminas for thousands of years from this rare and fabulous fibre. 

The higher the altitude at which the goats live, the finer the hair they grow. The goats are not shorn but carefully combed once a year in early spring just as they begin to shed very fine winter coats. They live their natural lifespan of 10-12 years. See below for more on the meaning of cashmere.

The Wool Company pashminas are hand-loomed and hand-finished in Kathmandu in  Nepal from skilfully hand-spun cashmere. These cashmere shawls have been sourced over many years by us from many different producers, some of whom only produce one style of shawl for us, as we feel it is worthy of being part of our collection. We‘ve always been somewhat obsessive about quality consequently we would never introduce a pure cashmere scarf unless we know it is simply the best possible quality, meaning you can buy any cashmere pashmina from us in confidence. 

Each cashmere wrap shawl has its own special qualities, but all are exquisite to the touch, combining comfort and practicality with luxury and timeless elegance. Our cashmere shawls and pashmina shawl wraps are very soft, warm, light, silky, and cloud-like in feel and look. Every cashmere wrap that is delivered to you, will be carefully packed in a sturdy gift box. Treat yourself with real cashmere pashmina to accessorise an evening gown, as well as wrap yourself in one while on the move! While being a practical and versatile accessory, owning a pure cashmere scarf is an undeniable delight to sight and touch that you will not get enough of.

The name “cashmere” originates from the region of Kashmir in northern India where the Changthangi Goat, more commonly known as the Pashmina Goat or Kashmir Goat, is native to Ladakh and Kashmir and has been bred, usually nomadically, on the roof of the world for many hundreds of years. There are now numerous breeds of cashmere goat, and many are bred in China, Australia, Mongolia, and Tibet, but those which grow the finest cashmere wool (12-13 microns diameter) mostly live at over 4,000 metres (2½ miles) above sea level, where the temperatures range from a toasty +35℃/95℉ down to a bitter -20℃/-31℉ (although in a fresh breeze this would feel like -32℃/-26℉). 

It is this extreme range of temperatures that have caused the pashmina goats to grow such extraordinarily fine downy hair. Cashmere goats produce two types of hair; guard-hair and down. The much coarser guard hairs protect the insulating down which is the cashmere wool that’s harvested by combing. To be officially recognised as cashmere in the USA and the UK the fibre needs to be of a diameter not exceeding around 18.5 microns (0.0185 of a millimetre) and have a length of around 4.5cm or more.