To my mind, of all the wonderful textiles to be found in souqs across the Arab world, Cashmere and Pashmina are the most luxurious and wearable. Women wear them as shawls for warmth, men wear them as head coverings or around their shoulders over their jackets.
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The array of shawls available in the souqs are expansive, in terms of both quality and price. They vary greatly in weight, design, texture, embroidery, and finish.
Both Cashmere and Pashmina are loved for warding off the chill on a cool evening or dressing up an outfit. However, Pashmina is the more sought-after for warmth, softness, and light weight. It used to be said that you could pull a Pashmina shawl through a finger ring. While that boast is now dismissed as mere fable, a good Pashmina is unbelievably soft and fine. Pashmina is made from the soft undercoat of Changtangi goats (a variety of “Capra Hircus”), which live in the Changtang region of western Tibet and southeast Ladakh in India. These animals have evolved an extra fine underlayer of hair which insulates them from the extreme cold of their high-altitude surroundings.
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To make a single Pashmina shawl, you can appreciate the number of fibers that need to be collected from however many Changtangi goats to craft just one shawl, thus Pashmina is usually mixed with silk, Cashmere, or wool like Merino or lambswool to produce a fine product that is affordable. Pashmina can only be woven by a handloom, as modern power looms will break the delicate fibers.
Pashminas are typically a solid color, although you also may find them with very fine hand embroidery. The ends of a pashmina (the short sides) are unfinished and are never braided, a feature that can help identify a ‘true’ Pashmina.
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Cashmere on the other hand comes from the Cashmere goat which also resides in the Himalayan region and these days it is often found to be mixed with synthetics like what we encounter in the souqs. The wool of the Cashmere goat, while still incredibly soft, is slightly thicker than that of the Changtangi goat, which helps account for the different texture of the final products.
© Brid Beeler. All rights reserved.
But be careful buying as vendors sell what they call Kashmiri shawls, most of which are mixed with synthetics, which are wonderful for decorating a holiday table. This is a lucrative market and the introduction of synthetics serves a market not so dissimilar to the fast fashion industry which is unsustainable.
The same applies to Pashmina; airport shops likewise sell Pashmina, but the reality is that these shawls have a minuscule amount of Pashmina fiber in them. Additionally, many shawls nowadays are mass-produced on power looms mixed with other fibers.
My foray into the world of Pashmina shawls was in their original home of Kashmir, which spans the borders of India and Pakistan, and to this day still disputed territory. I visited Kashmir traveling from Amritsar in the Punjab in the Northwest of India, on a local bus through the treacherous mountain roads and valleys back in the summer of 1987. It was a journey that took more than 13 hours covering some 500 km. At that time in my life, I had never seen a more beautiful place on earth, having already visited 27 countries in the world by then. But that mountain road was absolutely terrifying as the wheels of the bus somehow or other managed to cling on and not slip into the abyss below, thanks to the skill of our driver who somehow kept the bald tires away from the cliff edge.
Descending into the Vale of Kashmir was simply breathtaking, surrounded by mile-high mountains and vibrant green valley floors below. At the base is Srinagar, the capital of Jammu and Kashmir situated on the Jhelum River which flows through the valley to Dal Lake. The lake was the center of commerce, with floating markets and houseboats dancing on the shimmering waters, crisscrossed by the ripples left by the Shikara’s (water transport) not so dissimilar to Venice’s Gondolas. Staying on a houseboat with Kashmiri silk rugs and walnut carvings everywhere, I felt instantly transformed into the Mughal era, which is when Pashmina became popular across the British Empire.
Most Kashmiris engage in the craft of Cashmere or Pashmina in one manner or another, either as herders or home weavers. The wool has to be cleaned, carded, and spun, all by hand. Looms where craftsmen sit in workshops silently working away with only the sound of the swishing and swaying of the loom back and forth remind me of Iran’s carpet industry.
© Brid Beeler. All rights reserved.
Investing in Pashmina is akin to investing in a diamond. They are part of dowries among many families particularly in the Indian Subcontinent. In the Middle East, they abound at social occasions and on the Heads of State in Oman. Historically, Napoleon’s wife, Josephine, apparently amassed a collection of over 1,000 pieces! So why not get a Pashmina and join this distinguished group? You will look good and stay warm in the process.
About the Author: Brid Beeler first went to live in Saudi Arabia in 1989 and stayed for a decade. Her career then led her to live and work in Yemen and Oman and work for some of the world’s top travel companies. She currently heads Brid Beeler Travel (www.bridbeelertravel.com) and travels in and out of the Kingdom regularly on tour or collaborating on programs. She has traversed every corner of Arabia and is never happier than delving into the culture and treasures of the peninsula.
Brid began taking American travelers to Saudi Arabia in 1998 and, in addition to operating tours, she has trained guides, worked on award-winning documentaries, and written extensively on the region. In 2015, she was the Tour Director for the Smithsonian tour to Saudi Arabia, Oman and Qatar, which followed their internationally acclaimed Roads of Arabia exhibit.
She has presented papers on eco-tourism in the Middle East region and was one of only a handful of women invited by the National Commission for Wildlife Conservation & Development and the Supreme Commission for Tourism to speak at the first International Conference on Eco-Tourism in Saudi Arabia in 2002. She has written for Foreign Affairs and the Arab British Chamber of Commerce. In addition, she has published travel articles in Middle Eastern newspapers and spoken on Middle Eastern travel at embassy functions in Washington DC. A strong proponent of Middle Eastern art, culture and traditions, she has spoken on the ethnic silver jewelry of the Arabian Peninsula at the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin Castle.
Back home in Ireland, Brid enjoys walks on the beach with her latest saluki, Rishan.