Yak

Yak is struggling to be recognised as a luxury fibre. The fibre is naturally brown to fawn in colour. Lighter colours than this must be produced by bleaching the fibre, which is a little detrimental to its handle. The soft fine under hair is the desirable element of this animal’s coat and is removed commercially by dehairing, which separates the soft under hair from the coarse outer hair, known as guard-hair. It sits in between camel and cashmere for quality at 17-19 Microns and is used as a cashmere substitute, largely as a consequence of price. The fibre has never really appeared in full scale production of any substance. We are not sure why, but it is maybe to do with the fibre’s positioning, in relation to other fibres. Or maybe the name! This should not deter from experimenting with this fibre, which is, in our opinion undervalued.