Pashmina Shawls

Pashmina Shawls

This weeks blog post is quite a detailed look at things related to pashmina shawls, and some misconceptions in the pashmina business. 

We hope you find it interesting, inspiring and please comment on the article and share if you think other people will like it.

Authentic Pashmina Shawl

What is an authentic pashmina shawl ? When we started Mypashmina.co.uk back in 2003, we had many suppliers approaching us to tell us what was an authentic pashmina shawl. 

Some said it was any shawl in the right size 70x200cm regardless of the material.

Some said it was made from pashmina yarn , which doesn't exist. 

An authentic pashmina shawl is a shawl or stole made from a mix of cashmere and silk. Cashmere is a type of wool that comes from one goat called the 'capra'hircus' goat.

Pashmina Scarf How To Wear

I recently read an article about 10 ways to wear a pashmina scarf. We will make some instructional videos soon for you lovely customers of Mypashmina. 

It's a challenge to make a good quality instructional video about how to wear a pashmina scarf, but we can try our best. 

Our main expertise is in quality control and logistics, to make sure customers get the best pashmina scarves.

Pashmina Goat

There is no such thing as a pashmina goat. 

In this picture me and Caroline are holding some baby 'Capra Hircus' goats. This is what people think of as a pashmina goat, but really it is the cashmere goat. The fibre is cashmere.

These pictures were taken at a cashmere farm in northern China, near to the Mongolian border. When I say farm, it is more of a farm base. 

The goats just roam around everywhere on the nearby hills. They come back to base from time to time. Maybe every night.

Happy goats make better cashmere, so the market decides that the goats get well treated. 

The baby goats would make a lovely pet, but they grown up quite big and goaty, and I am sure they would eat all the furniture.

Why Are Pashmina Shawls Banned

I should have titled this blog post 'misconceptions of the pashmina world'.

So, why are pashmina shawls banned ? They are not. It is Shatoosh shawls which are banned. Shatoosh is a wool which is even finer than cashmere, but it comes from an endangered Tibetan antelope which can not be kept in captivity. 

The wool can not be harvested without hurting or killing the animal. So if anyone offers you Shatoosh, please say no thanks.

Pashmina Wrap For Wedding

If you need a pashmina wrap for wedding, then Mypashmina.co.uk is the correct shop to buy from. 

You can read more about pashminas for weddings on our website.  Here is an extract.

Why Buy Pashminas For Your Wedding?

1. They look great. Look at the picture of the bride and bridesmaids all with matching pashminas. It looks amazing.

2. They are practical. If it gets a bit cold, you can put it on, and if it gets a bit warm, you can take it off easily. Pashminas are light and soft and warm, so it is no burden to carry one with you. You can even easily tuck it in to a bag.

3. Pashminas make useful and well appreciated gifts. If your bridesmaids are wearing matching pashminas, then it is something they will treasure for a long time after the event. Cashmere mixed with silk makes the most luxurious fabric.

4. They are useful after the event. A pashmina can easily transform an outfit. Its just a handy accessory, that is also luxurious.

5. Pashminas are relatively inexpensive compared to some of the disposable items that people spend money on at weddings.

 Silk Pashmina Wrap

This is another popular term that we hear. We sell pure silk stoles , but some people mean classic 7030 pashminas when they say silk pashmina wrap.

We have 21 colours in stock, so I am pretty sure we have the colour of silk wrap you like.

They are light and floaty.

– 60cm x 190cm (24″ x 75″)
– Pure Silk – 210 Quality
– Handmade in Nepal
– 26 colours in stock

These pure silk pashminas are light and floaty and great to wear when you don’t need the extra warmth of cashmere. They are made from the finest grade of silk.

Pashmina Shawl Ring Test

One way of checking if a ring shawl is a genuine cashmere ring shawl used to be to pull it through a ring. 

If it would fit through the ring, then it must be made from cashmere and not regular wool. 

A woolen shawl would not be fine enough to fit through. I think that nowdays you could probably pull a nasty old viscose shawl through a ring, but i doubt it would trick anyone.

You could always do the burn test to reveal if it is genuine cashmere or not!

Black Pashmina

The Black Pashmina is easily the most popular colour of pashmina.

White and Navy Blue are next in the popularity stakes, but the black pashmina is the clear winner.

At Mypashmina.co.uk , you will find lots of different styles of pashminas in black. 

When I search for 'Black' I get 30 results at the moment.

This is just the pashminas we have in stock.

You can have almost any style especially made in almost any size in black.

Cashmere Hats from Mypashmina.co.uk

Womens Cashmere Hats UK

Yes, we have 32 different cashmere hats in stock at the moment. Although most of our customers are women. I am male and I constantly wear one of the reversible hats. As do my wife and kids. I like it so much. You can choose which colour to show, and they are so soft and light and warm.

FREE SHIPPING. So the price you see is the total price that you pay.

Cashmere Beanie Hat

I just wanted to check the definition of a Cashmere Beanie Hat. So this is from Wikipedia. "In the United States, a beanie is a head-hugging brimless cap, with or without a visor, made from triangular panels of material joined by a button at the crown and seamed together around the sides. Commonly made of cloth or felt material, beanies may also be made from leather or silk." Our Beanie Hats are made from cashmere.

Cashmere Bobble Hat Womens

We don't currently have any cashmere bobble hat womens . That does seem a strange way to phrase it. We have plenty of cashmere hats, but none of them have bobbles on. I think it is a very rare thing. You would need at least 20 grams of cashmere just for the bobble, and I am not sure if people would be willing to pay the extra. Let me know..

Maybe we could make the bobble out of a cheaper material such as wool, but then most of the cashmere hat would be very soft and the bobble would be itchy.

Cashmere Gloves

Cashmere Gloves are almost an essential partner to a cashmere hat. I especially like out finger on/off cashmere gloves. They are so soft and light and you can easily reveal your fingers to flick about on your phone.

We have about 7 colours of the cashmere on/off gloves in stock, and we also have some similar styles.

You can find cashmere wristwarmers, which have a cable knit design. I prefer the cashmere gloves, because it is my fingers that get the coldest.

One more benefit of cashmere gloves is how quickly they dry out if they get wet. It is amazing. If you compare it to wool gloves or other gloves you would be very surprised.

Cashmere Hat Grey

We have this grey cashmere hat in stock at the moment. It is a pure cashmere hat. It is made from 28 count, 4ply yarn with a cable-knit design. 

It is soft and light and warm and you will forget you are wearing it. I am wearing one of the reversible cashmere hats right now, and I have even got in the shower with one on my head before because I forgot it was there.

The price is just £30. Mypashmina offers much better deals than anyone else. This is mainly because of the lack of middle men. It's just us and our cashmere factory.

Cashmere Slouch Beanie

I wasn't sure what this was. I thought a cashmere slouch beanie might be simply an oversize cashmere hat, so I looked it up. I was right. But it seems that if you put the word 'slouch' next to the word 'cashmere', then that will be €120 please, thank you very much!

Our cashmere hats start at £30 and our double layer reversible cashmere hats are just £39.60

€192 !! wow farfetched . 

Navy Cashmere Hat

That Navy slouch Beanie might be €192 , but  Mypashmina.co.uk has cashmere hats  from just £30. They are 100% cashmere, and it is top quality cashmere as well. We regularly send it to SGS Labs to have it tested, and we have also sent cashmere yarn from competitors for testing in the past. 

I just noticed that we do not have a Navy Cashmere Hat in stock. It will be in a few weeks.

Cashmere Scarf

If you are planning to buy a cashmere scarf , then I would recommend these thick woven cashmere scarves . 

Individually photographed because each one is unique and we would like you to know exactly what you are getting. These are very thick and therefore very warm.  They look smart, but they do not look boring. If you want a cashmere scarf that might last you 20 years, then I would recommend these. £100 is quite a lot of money for a scarf, but I can wander around in winter with a t-shirt and one of these scarves on an I don't feel the need for a coat. Not that I am wandering around. Sounds a bit mad.

Cashmere and Pashminas - Choose Your Colour

Which Colour Pashminas ?

We have loads of colours in stock, and now we have sorted them in to colour categories. 

It is a great way to browse pashminas. We have lots of different styles, and who would know exactly what each name we have given them actually means! 

Often we know what colour we want, but we don't know exactly which style of pashmina. 

This is why it is easy to browse cashmere by colour.

Try it. 

Click on the swatches below to see what we have!

 BEIGE

 BLACK

 BLUE

 BROWN

 GREENS

 GREY

 MULTI

 ORANGE

 PINK

 PURPLE

 RED

 WHITE

Pashminas For Weddings UK

Why Buy Pashminas For Your Wedding?

1. They look great. Look at the picture of the bride and bridesmaids all with matching pashminas. It looks amazing.
2. They are practical. If it gets a bit cold, you can put it on, and if it gets a bit warm, you can take it off easily. Pashminas are light and soft and warm, so it is no burden to carry one with you. You can even easily tuck it in to a bag.
3. Pashminas make useful and well appreciated gifts. If your bridesmaids are wearing matching pashminas, then it is something they will treasure for a long time after the event. Cashmere mixed with silk makes the most luxurious fabric.
4. They are useful after the event. A pashmina can easily transform an outfit. Its just a handy accessory, that is also luxurious.

5. Pashminas are relatively inexpensive compared to some of the disposable items that people spend money on at weddings.

Which Pashmina Are Best For Your Wedding ?

We can’t tell you which pashminas to choose, but we can tell you what has been most popular with brides and bridesmaids in the last 15 years.

As you can see in the picture at the top, all the bridesmaids are wearing large scarves. This is the most popular size for pashminas for bridesmaids.

Most brides choose 70% Cashmere / 30% Silk pashminas for a wedding. These have a slight sheen compared to the pure cashmere pashminas.

Most people choose to have their pashminas with the traditional tassels, but you can have them made with open fringes or with a hemmed edge. It is your choice.

The most popular colour of pashminas for a wedding is natural white. This is the colour in the top picture and the one on the right

After the classic 7030 pashmina stole, the most popular style is the jacquard water pashmina. This is usually for the bride herself

Lots of parents of people getting married buy a special pashmina for the big day, its just a beautiful and handy accessory, especially if the British weather changes to cold!

Famous People Who Wear Pashminas

I keep seeing pictures of Celebrities, Royals and politicians wearing pashminas.

We always wonder if they are ours. We have delivered to Downing Street and Buckingham Palace before, but it could be for anyone who works at these addresses.

It's a pashmina shawl thing

They're a celebrity favourite, but will pashminas be a hit on the internet?

Fri 4 Jun 1999 16.30 BSTFirst published on Fri 4 Jun 1999 16.30 BST

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At a certain type of fashion or media gathering, a pashmina - a super-soft shawl made from goat cashmere blended with silk - has graced almost every pair of female shoulders in 2019. "Practically everybody has at least one," says Paul King, owner of Mypashmina and a retailer of pashminas in the UK.

Mypashmina began stocking them 16 years ago in 2003. Kate Moss and Jade Jagger wear pashminas all the time, Nicole Kidman bought 60 at once and the fashion assistants at Vogue House have such an insatiable lust for them that Mypashmina.co.uk , pashmina supplier par excellence, was nicknamed The Pashmina man on account of his almost daily deliveries.

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Believe it or not, this is not the start of the phenomenon. While there are no doubt hundreds of women who have never heard of them and, frankly, couldn't care less, pashminas are about to take the high street by storm. This spring, Marks & Spencer introduced a small number into a few key stores "to test the market". They sold out straight away. From autumn, M&S will sell pashminas in major stores nationwide for just £99 - double the typical price at Mypashmina. Debenhams has two ranges in the pipeline. The first, designed by Philip Treacy, will be in stores from the end of July in pink, silver, lavender and pale blue, for only £100; the second arrives in September.

The key to the pashmina phenomenon, according to Paul, is "the sheer deliciousness of them. Just like we love to eat chocolate because it tastes good, women love to wear pashminas because they feel fantastic." But it's not just the way the cashmere and silk feels, it's the exclusive aura it confers. "They are very tactile," says Caroline of M&S, "but also very visible. They smack of sophistication."

The pashmina craze has undeniably Sloaney origins (one wearer told me the popularity of cyclamen pink was due to the fact that it "looks lovely with blonde hair") but their Eastern ethnicity prevents them looking too King's Road. These days, they are said to be almost as popular with readers of this newspaper as with those of Tatler.

There are practical reasons for the success of the pashmina: few women have an evening coat any more and the pashmina solves the problem of what to wear over a smart dress on cool evenings at summer parties and weddings. It is not just for eveningwear, though: Shani Fry, accessories head buyer for Debenhams, expects customers will also be wearing pashminas "to tone down a tailored suit".

It's not just whether you've got a pashmina, of course, but how you wear it. Shawl-like is fine with a slinky dress but over daytime clothes it can make you look like an eastern European granny on her way to the vegetable market. The done thing by day is to wear your pashmina as a scarf, folded in half lengthways with the fringed ends looped through in precisely the method intimidating Parisian schoolgirls used to make their scarves look dauntingly stylish when I was on the French exchange. Apparently there's "a little twisty motion" you do before you fold it in half that "makes all the difference", one devotee told me.

Even on the hottest days, some can't bear to be separated from their pashminas. On a summer afternoon in Westbourne Grove, a friend spotted two girls wearing their pashminas as sarongs. (But that's west London for you: I prefer the girl I saw in a pub in Islington wearing an Arsenal wall-hanging as a sarong.)

Pashmina mania

...meanwhile, is spreading from the core group of affluent thirtysomethings. Welstead reports that girls are being bought them for their 18th birthday; jewel colours and powder blue (anointed this season's pashmina shade by Vogue) are popular with younger women, while older customers love beige and cream. For next season, Welstead reckons his pashminas shaded from light to dark grey will do well, while Lewin expects to sell lots of winter white.

The pashmina market

...is expanding in all directions. Sophia Swire sells extra-soft pashminas for babies at a very grown-up £399, while Gieves, the new diffusion range from Savile Row tailors Gieves & Hawkes, features charcoal grey pashminas for men at £350. And it's not just a London thing: pashminas are doing brisk business at Barney's in New York.

The pashmina looks set to take the high street by storm. It has been called the 90s equivalent of the 80s Hermès scarf, but Sam Robinson, owner of The Cross in west London, which sells Welstead's pashminas, likens it to the Filofax: "A luxury item but ever so practical. You can't cope without one!" Of course not.