Two cashmere sweaters sit side by side on a shelf at a retailer. They appear to be the same colour and cut. The tags both show they’re the same ply - but one costs more. What’s the difference? The fibre that went into the yarn in the first place.

All cashmere fibre comes from the finest underhair beneath the thick exterior coat of the cashmere goat living on the frigid plateaus of Mongolia and China - and it takes the underhair of at least 3 goats to create one sweater. The rarity of this fibre, and the difficult conditions under which it is gathered, is one reason cashmere is so precious. But Cashmere Made In Scotland® is rarer still.

You see, we will only accept a small fraction of the harvested raw fibre for processing - fibres that are a minimum of 34mm in length and a maximum thickness of 16.5 micron. Yarn that is spun from fibre that falls short of these specifications, will be weaker and will result in quick pilling with wear. After a season, a sweater made from such a lesser yarn may also tend to lose its shape.

You may hear some people say thread count is what’s important. And that may be true when you’re buying sheets, but when it comes to cashmere, yarn count or ply isn’t what counts. It’s the integrity of the fibre you start with. Anyone who tells you anything else is just spinning an inferior yarn.

We stand for Truth in Cashmere. Thus, compromising on durability is not an option for us. Obviously, because the fibre we start with is all the more precious, Cashmere Made In Scotland® will cost more. But it means you can depend on it to stand the test of time - and for a level of quality that defines true luxury.