From Goat to Coat: A Cashmere Journey

Most of us have plenty of time and not a lot of space on our hands at the moment. You only have to peruse Instagram for 30 seconds to see how we’re all creatively making the most of it. Whether it’s banana bread, yoga and meditation, online courses or our newfound appreciation for that one precious lap around the park, we’re all in this for the long haul and we’re all in this together. One of my contributions, aside from overwhelming my poor housemates with countless, questionable baked goods, is taking the time to dive deeper into the ins and outs of how cashmere journeys from the hills and mountains of Asian grasslands to your wardrobe.

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

International Women's Day | Women in Cashmere Mongolia

International Women's Day is a day to celebrate womanhood no matter where or how we live. It's also a day to remind ourselves of the ongoing gender issues in today's vast and complicated societies, as well as being a day to encoutage better equality and autonomy for women all over the world. To celebrate in my own way, I want to tell you a little bit about the women who work and thrive in the cashmere sector and there's no better place to start than in Mongolia, where women make up 90% of the country's cashmere workforce. 

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

A short introduction to sustainability in cashmere

I remember the book that inspired me to start reading up on sustainability in the cashmere industry. Lucy Siegle’s To Die For: Is Fashion Wearing Out the World? introduced me to an entirely new way of thinking about fashion and for one reason or another, there was something about her call for more sustainable cashmere that really stuck. Maybe it was the allure of luxury fashion, or maybe it was because it was my first real understanding of the relationship between nature and the industry. Either way, four years on and I find myself totally hooked, having specialised in cashmere for my master’s degree, and deciding to put down roots in Scotland, one of the UK’s cashmere hubs. 

Author: Charlotte Blades-Barrett