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Pashmina Shawl Manufacturers
Pashmina shawl manufacturers take great care to ensure that only quality products reach the consumers. Most of the pashmina and cashmere that you see in the stores is imported form Asian countries, and the whole process is hand driven, from collecting the fibers to packaging. That accounts for the exorbitant price tags attached to most pashmina products.
COUNTRIES OF ORIGIN AND TRADE
Of all the cashmere, China is the biggest supplier of cashmere products to the world, accounting for more than two-thirds of the world production in the 1990s.
China is followed by Mongolia that supplies over 20% of the total produce.
Other countries are Nepal, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, New Zealand, and lastly Kashmir that originally gave rise to the words cashmere and pashmina.
The whole pashmina shawl manufacturing process is manual and hand driven. The stages can be described as follows:
- Fiber collection: done manually when goats shed hair naturally.
- Fiber spinning: various ply threads are made.
- Weaving in handlooms: power looms break the threads. Hence hand made.
- Mending white pieces
- Washing white pieces to remove spots, blots, etc.
- Dyeing: a very vast range of colors can be produced.
- Fringe making: beaded or tasseled fringes of various lenghts.
- Embroidery: requires tremendous skill, patience, and endurance to make one shawl.
- Ironing: special ironing methods to ensure woolen fiber is protected.
- Packing: final packing in protected cartons.
The Kashmir handicraft industry supplied cashmere products to the Mugals and the Europeans in the 18th and 19th centuries. Today it accounts for very little of the total traded cashmere and pashmina.