Cashmere Shawl
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
a fine woolen shawl made originally in India. The genuine shawl was for centuries one of the most costly and highly prized articles of commerce. Three thousand dollars has been paid for a single shawl, although it is claimed that few, if any, of the best specimens leave India. These shawls are made from the fine, downy wool found about the roots of the hair of the wild goats of Tibet and the Himalayas. They have been made, it is believed, for 4,000 years. The down is separated from the coarse wool, and is spun by hand. The fiber is so short that spinning is a work of difficulty. The weaving is done in a rude hand loom; three or four men sometimes working for a year to produce one shawl. This tedious process, and the fact that the Cashmere goat has not been reared successfully outside of Tibet, account for the costliness of these shawls. They are made in several styles. Some are wholly of one piece and are dyed in a solid color. Others are made of small strips or squares set together with marvelous skill. Either style may be embroidered. Cashmere shawls have been imitated in many places. The most famous imitations are the Broche' (bro-sha') shawls of France and the Paisley shawls of Scotland. Cashmere shawls have been called erroneously camel's hair shawls, from the popular belief that they were made of camel's hair. The plain Cashmere shawls are called chudders or chuddahs in Europe and the United States . See Cashmere ; Cashmere Goat ; Shawl
What Has Changed in the Last Century
When Aiton's wrote this in 1910, the trade was already past its peak: French demand for Kashmir shawls had collapsed after 1870, and by the mid-20th century the great hand-loom workshops that once employed several men for a year on one piece had shrunk to a heritage craft. The claim that "the Cashmere goat has not been reared successfully outside of Tibet" no longer holds at all — cashmere is now a bulk global fibre, with China and Mongolia supplying most of the world's supply and machine-spun cashmere sold in ordinary knitwear. The Kashmir side of the story is now protected rather than dominant: hand-spun Kashmir pashmina carries an Indian geographical-indication mark, and the finest old kani-woven shawls of the sort Aiton's priced at three thousand dollars are museum and auction objects. "Paisley," once the name of a Scottish imitation, has outlived the imitation to become the standard name for the pattern itself.
Written for this edition, 2026.