Pashmina (material)

The Mandala Chandar (c. 1840, detail) is an unusual Kashmiri tantric moon shawl (chandar) with a mandala in the centre from which radiates zoomorphic tendrils, filled with multi-coloured millefleurs on a pink ground.

Pashmina (/pæʃˈmiːnə, pɑːʃ-/, also UK: /pʌʃ-/) refers to, depending on the source, the cashmere wool of the Changthangi cashmere goat, or fine Kashmiri cashmere wool.

Detail of an Antique Museum-quality Pashmina Dorukha (reversible) Shawl ca. 1870 – courtesy Wovensouls collection, Singapore

The word pashm means "wool" in Persian, but in Kashmir, pashm referred to the raw unspun wool of domesticated Changthangi goats. In common parlance today, pashmina may refer either to the material or to the variant of the Kashmir shawl that is made from it. Both cashmere and pashmina come from the same goat but typical cashmere ranges from 12 to 21 microns in diameter, whereas pashmina can also refer to a cashmere and silk blend (70% / 30%) that has a typical fiber range from 12 to 16 microns.

This page is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.