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From Goat to Coat: Processing

Part 02: Processing

 

Begg x Co cashmere is herded and processed solely in Mongolia so all fibres, no matter how far away they are, are bought by trusted traders and are processed in the Mongolian capital of Ulaanbaatar. To give you an idea of how remote herders are, Mongolia is six times the size of the UK and traders often travel that distance to buy the cashmere and haul it back. 

 

But what is cashmere processing? And why is it so important? Processing is basically what it says on the tin: the part of the cashmere supply chain that sees the transformation of raw (and rather yucky!) cashmere into the light and sumptuous fibre we know it to be. While it could be argued that processing begins from the moment the fibre is harvested and collected up, the specific bit of processing I want to talk about here is what happens when the fibre makes it to the processing factories.

 

Step one: another round of sorting and dehairing

 

Cashmere is stored and transported in big bales and once it has travelled the breadth of the country to its destination in the city, these bales are unloaded and the cashmere is again dehaired and sorted by hand, under white light. This is done to remove guard hair and any hidden nasties like plastic (from transit), dirt and nippy critters that compromise the quality of the finished product and potentially clog up the machines. It is also colour sorted during this stage to ensure consistency and quality control.

Step two: Mechanical Scouring 

 

Once step one is completed, the cashmere is then mechanically scoured or in layman's terms ‘cleaned’, to remove dirt and oily residues, preparing it for the next stage of processing which is mechanical dehairing. It’s extremely important to get scouring right because if it isn’t done properly it can significantly impact the overall quality of the cashmere fibre. There are several factors that are closely monitored throughout the scouring process including pH levels, temperature, detergent used and water rates. Interestingly, around a fifth of the fibre mass is lost during this stage.

 

Step three: Mechanical dehairing

 

Mechanical dehairing is what happens when the (now clean!) cashmere is fed into a specialist machine to separate the guard hair and any remaining dirt or dust from the beautifully soft down hair. To do this, dehairing machines comb the fibres, using the different frictions of the guard hair, down hair and remaining impurities to physically separate them within the machine. The guard hair and dirt is then discarded and the fluffy down is presented in reams of layered clouds. Like seen in scouring, the overall fibre mass of the cashmere put through the machine significantly reduces as the guard hairs are removed. 

 

To give you an idea, this is cashmere before mechanical dehairing.

And this is the fibre after…

Throughout the entirety of cashmere processing, the atmospheres of the machine rooms are specially regulated with high moisture to keep the fibres from drying out and becoming brittle. This is the same all over the world, from Mongolia to Scotland and is an extremely important factor in the production of high quality cashmere. 

 

So once this is complete, we come to the next steps; dyeing and spinning, which I’m going to be talking about next time with the help of Begg x Co’s experts. So until then, keep the banana breads flowing and stay safe at home!

Author: Lotti Blades-Barrett, sustainability expert and writer. 

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