The Truth About Cashmere Starts With the Goat

Some brands have cancelled cashmere in the name of animal welfare. We went to Inner Mongolia and met the goats. Here’s why we think that’s the wrong call.

There’s a version of the story that goes: goats bad, overgrazing bad, cashmere bad, buy synthetic instead. The issues they point to are real. But writing off an entire natural fibre, biodegradable, recyclable, and free from microplastics, because of poor practices in parts of the industry misses the point. The answer isn’t to abandon cashmere. It’s to do it properly.

So we went to see what “properly” looks like.

First, the goats. Cashmere goats are surprisingly sensitive animals, easily stressed, which directly affects the quality of their fibre. That means their wellbeing isn’t separate from the product; it’s fundamental to it. Calm goats produce finer, softer cashmere. Anxious goats don’t. Good animal care and good business are, in this case, exactly the same thing.

The goats we met spend their days roaming freely across vast rangelands, grazing, walking miles, and behaving as goats should. A herder might pass occasionally, but they’re largely left to their own rhythms. That daily movement of often up to 10,000 steps keeps them healthy and helps produce strong, high-quality fibre, while the harsh winters naturally encourage the growth of a dense, soft undercoat.

In the evenings, they return to shelter, warm, monitored, and well-fed, especially through winter when additional feed is grown and stored specifically for them. Their health is tracked individually, with preventative care built into the system.

Even the small details reflect this attention. At one facility, ambient music plays continuously to keep the environment calm. The goat dip, a gentle disinfecting process, has been designed to minimise stress. It’s all geared towards one outcome: healthy, relaxed animals.

When it comes time to harvest the fibre, the goats are not sheared but gently combed. The soft undercoat they produce for winter naturally loosens in spring, and is carefully collected by hand, primarily from the underbelly. The goat carries on with its day. No harm done.

The bigger issue, and the one critics rightly highlight, is land. Overgrazing happens when herd sizes outgrow what the land can support, often because herders are underpaid and forced to produce more fibre to make a living. The solution isn’t to abandon cashmere, but to support systems that pay fairly and manage grazing responsibly.

The herders we met rotate grazing land, allowing ecosystems to recover, and work with environmental specialists to monitor the long-term health of the grasslands. Because if the land fails, everything fails with it.

Cashmere, done well, is a natural fibre that works with the environment, not against it. It biodegrades. It can be recycled. It doesn’t release microplastics into waterways with every wash. Compare that to most synthetic alternatives, and it’s worth asking what problem we’re really solving by replacing one with the other.

Some brands have stepped away from cashmere because verifying supply chains is difficult. That’s understandable. But the better response is to build transparency, not abandon the material altogether.

So that’s what we’ve done. We’ve partnered with people who have spent decades getting it right, creating a fully traceable system where we know the goats, the herders, and the land the fibre comes from.

The most responsible thing you can do? Buy less, but better. Choose pieces that last, from brands that can tell you exactly where their cashmere comes from and how the goats behind it are treated.

If they can’t, that tells you something.