Cashmere: Worth the (Low) Cost?

This Christmas, it seemed like everyone I knew got a cashmere sweater from Santa. How did this once luxury product become so mainstream, I wondered? After some research, it hit me: China.

China and Mongolia have been the world’s largest producers of cashmere for decades, so there’s nothing new there. What is new is the US’s outrageous demand for cheap cashmere sweaters. With affordable cashmere garments available from places like Costco, why would Americans pay the typically hefty price tag for cashmere at stores like Bloomingdale’s and Nordstrom?

As usual, when there’s a low cost at one end of the spectrum, there’s a high cost at another. This article, originally printed in the Chicago Tribune, brings to light the hidden costs of these cheap cashmere sweaters. Namely, the grasslands in China and Mongolia can’t support the plethora of goats needed to produce all that cashmere.

Hang on. Did anyone catch that? I worked “plethora of goats” into one of my posts. Genius.

Anyway, there’s more goats than the land can support. Starving goats are not pretty goats, and the quality of their cashmere is being compromised. Combine that with an abundance of cashmere goat herders eager to capitalize on American demand, and poof! You’ve got low prices, and one barren grassland. Technically, the grasslands aren’t actually grassy anymore, and are slowly becoming part of the Gobi Desert. This causes massive dust storms that combine with the pollution from clao-powered Chinese factories and are known to float over the Pacific Ocean, into the US, causing officials in several states to issue health warnings due to air quality.

So, here’s the cost of that cheap sweater your favorite aunt bought you for Christmas: barren grasslands plus too many goat herders and factories equals starving goats and massive dust pollution storms that reach America and beyond, multiplied by the fact that no one’s addressing the problem as long as the demand is there equals… a totally unsustainable production method! Way to go, Aunt Sylvia! Thanks for that Costco sweater!

I don’t actually have an Aunt Sylvia, or a Costco sweater, and you probably don’t either, but you get the point. Everywhere I look, I see relatively cheap cashmere sweaters. Over at Gap.com, there’s a handful of cashmere sweaters on sale for between $40 and $60. Even J. Crew, whose cashmere is more expensive, says they source their cashmere from Mongolia. I think it’s supposed to sound exotic, but now all I think about is that barren land that once was a lush grassland, and then? That J. Crew cashmere? It totally looks lame.

So if you want a cashmere sweater but don’t want to exploit the cashmere problem, what do you do? Treehugger has a decent list of questions to ask yourself about a garment. And, of course, you could always buy cashmere from Scotland, the world’s largest producer outside of Asia. But what about the price tag? As you can see, Scottish cashmere isn’t cheap.

Paying a lot for good cashmere sweater? Well, if you can’t afford to buy nice cashmere, then the Mongolian goat herders (and the goats) in this equation can’t afford the costs of the sweater you’d buy instead. Think about THAT the next time you’re shopping and the retail display dazzles you with promises of quality cashmere sweaters at amazing prices. Sure, the price is amazing, but you won’t be the one paying it.