| Luxurious natural fibers - Cashmere, Camelhair,
Lambswool - these fibers come from the far ends of the world and require unrivalled
experience and skill to turn them into garments of outstanding quality, style and design.
Today's technology allows the most sophisticated designs, surface patterns and colors to
come together to create elegant Scottish knitwear for discerning markets throughout the world. Color, color, color - hundreds of colors in the most sophisticated of natural
fibers - that has been one of the secrets of William Lockie's success. An ability to offer
an exceptional range of colors and finishes to its customers - and, of course, as one of
the World's specialists in the manufacture of Camerlhair Knitwear - the styles and
designs, in this fiber, are unrivalled. |
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The story of Scottish Cashmere begins many
thousands of miles from Scotland, among the semi-nomadic pastoralists of China. |
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| Their wealth and one of the world's greatest
treasures is borne on the backs of the nimble footed goats which they tend throughout the
year. |
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In the summer months, herds of 50 to 200 goats
are taken to roam the high plateau for grass and scrub. In winter, temperatures at this
altitude can fall as low as -40?C, and to protect themselves, the goats grow a downy
underfleece of soft short hair: cashmere. |
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| Inner Mongolia (brown/red) is now a region
of the People's Republic of China. It covers 1.6 million sq. km and has a population of
around 2 million. |
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The harsher the environment - the poorer the
grazing, the harder the winter - the better the quality of the undercoat: which is why no
other cashmere can match that produced in Mongolia. |
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| As spring comes, and before the goats begin to
molt, the herdsmen and their families begin the painstaking task of combing the precious
underfleece from the goats. |
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The combined season lasts 3-4 weeks and the
amounts produced are small - around 200-250g per goat. |
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| The quality of raw cashmere fiber is measured by
the length and cross section of individual fibers. The average length varies from 35mm to
50mm; the cross-section from 14.5 to 19 microns. Goats
live for about seven years and are first combed when they are 2 or 3 years old. In one
year, one goat can produce enough cashmere for a scarf whilst it takes 24 goats to produce
enough for a cashmere coat. |
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Cashmere is sorted by hand into 3 colors: brown
gray and white. They are then transported to Hong Kong where the fibers are checked for
their quality. From there, the cashmere fibers are carefully graded by removing any
longer, unwanted hair. Only then is the fiber of sufficient quality to by sent to Scotland
to be made into the world's finest knitwear. |
| Cotton.
A wonderful natural material grown widely throughout the world. |
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Camel Hair comes
from the two-humped Bactrian camel. From
the fine, soft undercoat or underlayer of hair. The straighter and coarser outer coat is
called guard hair.
The specialty animal hair fibers are
collected during molting seasons when the animals naturally shed their hairs.
From late spring to early summer,
camels shed their hair. Fallen clumps of hair are still collected by traditional
hand-gathering methods
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