Loro Piana celebrates ten years of impossibly soft clothing

If Cashmere is to fabric what Wagyu is to steak, then Baby Cashmere would be Kobe beef.

As you might guess, Baby Cashmere is variety of normal cashmere, but one that is ultra-fine, impossibly soft, and taken from the underfleece of young kid goats. Only available once in a goat’s lifetime, the fabric comes from the first combing of a cashmere goat — giving goat herders and purveyors of fine fabrics a finite window of opportunity to collect it.

First introduced to the market by Loro Piana in 2008, ten years of intensive development went into ensuring the process was viable and sustainable. As you can imagine, getting enough of the fabric is as complicated a process as you’d imagine.

With each animal providing only a tiny amount of fibre, the venerable clothier has worked to protect and champion its uniqueness — taking special care of the way cashmere is harvested in Inner Mongolia, and opening up new opportunities for creating ever-finer, softer cashmere.

With adult cashmere know the world-over for its quality, Baby Cashmere is in fact around 15 percent finer. Thanks to the extreme binary climate of the region (cold, brittle winters and sweltering, arid summers), the goats develop an insanely soft inner fleece layer and a hardy, coarse outer layer of wool.

With the young goat’s first fleece being naturally shed with the arrival of summer, its sublimely light and ultra-soft, the unique characteristics of Baby Cashmere are palpable to the touch. Only 30 grams is produced per goat per year and only 2,000kg of the  stuff is produced annually. Low maintenance these goats ain’t.

Luckily for us, as part of its 10th anniversary celebrations, Loro Piana has unveiled its new Autumn Winter ’18 collection with pieces made from that very baby cashmere. While stocks last, naturally.

Loro Piana, The Dubai Mall, Fashion Avenue, Dubai. Tel: +971 4 3303350 – Loropiana.com