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Your newest sweater should have something in common with your oldest.
Along with lug-sole Chelsea boots and down-filled parkas, cashmere sweaters fall into the enviable category of clothes that make winter not only survivable but stylish. Alas, there's a teeny-tiny issue with the staple, which is that it's wreaking havoc on the regions that produce it. Thanks to retailers making cashmere more accessible, and a growing consumer infatuation with all things cozy, the cashmere market has been booming for years, but the supply cannot continue to meet the demand. The goats that produce this precious fiber in Mongolia graze on grasslands that face the threat of climate change, for one, and growers pressured to favor quantity over quality are making choices that further degrade these precious areas. Cheap cashmere, which is mostly produced in China, is made under even more strained circumstances. The grass-barren lands that those goats graze on produce dust storms that spread polluted air all over the country.
Brands are reacting to this news in several different ways. Luxury conglomerate Kering is working directly with farmers in Mongolia to help preserve the grasslands in a sustainable way. New brands like Naadam tout their direct-to-consumer model as a way to pay farmers a better wage without putting more pressure on them to produce. And alpaca, a more sustainable natural fiber with similar properties, is having a moment right now.
But we're most interested in another solution: recycled cashmere, as embraced recently by a few of our favorite brands. Made mostly from post-consumer yarn that has been painstakingly sorted, shredded, and re-spun, recycled cashmere allows consumers to get cozy at a wildly lower cost to the environment.
Now, that doesn’t necessarily make it cheaper. Everyone from Patagonia and Eileen Fisher (Hi mom!) to Stella McCartney and Noah are using regenerated cashmere, but their pricing is in line with their brand and production choices. Noah's recycled cashmere is produced in Prato, Italy, where factories have been performing this task for centuries. Patagonia's post-consumer cashmere, meanwhile, comes from China and costs about half as much.
If you want to buy more mindfully but just can't get down with polyester, recycled cashmere is an option to explore. It's not exactly new—but it's definitely as cozy as you'd expect.
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