Two vintage fabrics Cashmere or Cashmere & Angora? Blend

GemGem

GemGem

Registered Guest
Hello lovlies!

I have another fabric question for you all.

This time I have searched and searched the selvages and ends of these pieces of what I believe to be cashmere, possibly with an angora blend but to no avail. No marks or writing anywhere.

I have two large pieces, both approx 1.5m wide and one is 3.5m long and the other is 4m long. I believe the weight would be about right for a coat as it is double sided and quite thick. One side is slightly rougher and the other has a sheen and slight ripple. It seems to be tightly woven, almost so you can not see a weave at all.

On the dark brown one the underside seems to have some kind of light white short hair in it and I was wondering if cashmere is ever combined/blended with angora? I found an example online that very closely resembles it close up.

I have shown a picture of that fabric first (a green colour) followed by pictures of my two fabrics in mid brown and tan colours.

Please do chime in with info/opinions etc. x


close up cashmere.jpg


My Brown

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Tan

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That looks velvety! You said "almost so you can not see a weave at all." Is the weave detectable?

I went through something like 50 vintage cashmere coats and suits that I've sold, and not one was a blend, interestingly enough, and there were no white short hairs. In my experience they are closely and densely napped, in this range:
beigecashmerecoatlisa4.JPG

to (less usually)—
tancashmerejacket3.JPG
 
Rue_de_la_Paix said:
It may be possible that one of your fabrics, the tan brown one, may be vicuna. Sometimes vicuna is blended with cashmere also. I cannot tell from a photo, but look into that as a possibility.
Click to expand...

I shall definitely do that! They are the softest finely woven I have come across. Although on one side they tend to be rougher and the brown one may have had more exposure on the outer side due to storage, but the under side is untouched. It is more apparent when you compare the first with the third photo of the brown fabric.
 
I just heard back! Received an email which was very helpful and friendly. They suggested I take it to their London store where someone could look at it for me. I may go next week! They said they can’t officially verify if it’s not their own fabric but they were happy to help :)
I will update once I have visited, so excited!!!!
 
Rue_de_la_Paix said:
It may be possible that one of your fabrics, the tan brown one, may be vicuna. Sometimes vicuna is blended with cashmere also. I cannot tell from a photo, but look into that as a possibility.
Click to expand...

Thank you so much for putting me onto this!

I have just returned from Johnstons of Elgin where the manager was not only happy to help but positively excited! What an enjoyable experience.

The verdict, after checking against various Cashmere and Vicuna goods was that the fabric I have is most likely Vicuna. The manager said that although in a professionally capacity she could not lend her name to the authentication she certainly personally believed it is Vicuna.

Having felt several cashmere and Vicuna fabrics at their store I do believe it is Vicuna. The most obvious distinction apart from the softness (being more soft than Cashmere) is that it just feels finer.

I am super happy with the result of my visit to new bond street today, I also visited Hermes with a vintage scarf I won at auction, but will save that for another thread.

Now all I need to do is work out where/how to sell it and what to price it as. I know Vicuna products are super expensive but apart from the very high end fabric retailers there seems to be no gauge to pricing. If anyone could point me in the right direction to research this, i'd be much obliged. YAY!
 
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