Pashmina Jamawar Shawls Pashmina refers to a type of cashmere wool and textiles made from it. The name comes from Pashmineh, made from Persian pashm (= "wool"). This wool comes from a special breed of goat indigenous to high altitudes of the Himalayan mountains. The special goat's fleece has been used for thousands of years to make high-quality shawls that also bear the same name. The Himalayan Mountain goat sheds its winter coat every spring and the fleece is caught on thorn bushes. One goat sheds approximately 3-8 ounces of the fiber. Villagers would scour the mountainside for the finest fleece to be used. Cashmere shawls have been manufactured in Kashmir and Nepal for thousands of years, but they were popularly called Kashmiri wool shawls. Kashmir Pashmina cost more than their counterparts because they are hand-woven and hand-loomed, never machine-loomed. The test for a quality pashmina has been warmth, feel and the passing of the shawl through a wedding ring (a well known characteristic of the ring shawl).

Name: PJL01; Type: Sozni Shawl Name: PJL02; Type: Sozni Shawl Name: PJM01; Type: Sozni Shawl Name: PJL03; Type: Sozni Shawl Name: PK01; Type: Kaani Shawl Name: PK02; Type: Kaani Shawl Name: PJL04; Type: Sozni Shawl Name: PJM02; Type: Sozni Shawl Name: PDR01; Type: Sozni Shawl Name: PDR02; Type: Sozni Shawl

Pashmina is unmistakable for its softness. Although pure Pashmina is expensive, sometimes blending it with rabbit fur or with wool brings down the cost. It is on Pashmina shawls that Kashmir's most exquisite embroidery is worked, sometimes the entire surface, earning the name of "Jamawar." Not all pashmina shawls have such lavish work done on them; some are embroidered on a narrow panel bordering all four sides, others in narrow strips running diagonally through the shawl. Shahtoosh is the legendary 'ring shawl', renowned for its lightness, softness and warmth. The astronomical price it commands in the market is due to the scarcity of raw material. High in the plateaus of Tibet and the eastern part of Ladakh, at an altitude of above 5,000 meters, roam the Tibetan antelope. During grazing, a few strands of the downy hair from the throat are shed and it is these, which are painstakingly collected by the locals until there are enough for a shawl. Yarn is spun either from Shahtoosh alone, or with Pashmina to bring down the cost. In the case of pure Shahtoosh too, there are many qualities - the yarn can be spun so skillfully as to resemble a strand of silk. Not only are shawls made from such fine yarn extremely expensive, they can only be loosely woven and are too flimsy for embroidery to be done on them. Unlike woolen or Pashmina shawls, Shahtoosh is seldom dyed. Its natural color is mousy brown, and it is embroidered sparsely or allover in the 'Jamawar' fashion. Needle-embroidered ('sozni') Pashmina shawls usually cost in the range 600 to 3,000 USD depending on whether the embroidery is sparse or covering the entre surface of the shawl (Jamawar type). Kaani Jamawars, in which the embroidery pattern results from weaving on a handloom, cost far more than needle-embroidered Pashmina Jamawars; usually in excess of US$ 5,000.