Kashmir shawl

The Kashmir shawl, the predecessor of the contemporary cashmere shawl, is a type of shawl identified by its distinctive Kashmiri weave and for being made of fine shahtoosh or pashmina wool. Contemporary variants include the pashmina and shahtoosh shawls (often mononymously referred to simply as the pashmina and shahtoosh). In the late 20th century, they evolved to middle-class popularity through generic cashmere products (rather than the higher-grade pashmina), and raffal, shawls woven in the Kashmiri style, but using thicker Merino wool. Originally designed as a covering for men in India, it has evolved in the popular cultures of India, Europe, and the United States as indicators of nobility and rank, heirlooms giving on a girl's coming-of-age and marriage, and subsequently, as artistic elements in interior design.

Valued for its warmth, light weight and characteristic buta design, the Kashmir shawl trade inspired the global cashmere industry. The shawl evolved into its high-grade, sartorial use in the 13th century and was used in the 16th century by Mughal and Iranian emperors, both personally and for honouring members of their durbar. In the late 18th century, it arrived in Britain, and then in France, where its use by Queen Victoria and Empress Joséphine popularised it as a symbol of exotic luxury and status. The Kashmir shawl has since become a toponym for the Kashmir region itself (cashmere, named after Kashmir), inspiring mass-produced imitation industries in India and Europe, and popularising the buta motif, today known as the Paisley motif after the factories in Paisley, Renfrewshire, Scotland that sought to replicate it.

The principal aspects of the shawl are its distinctive Kashmiri weaving technique and fine wool. However, the Kashmir shawl's definition has varied in time and place, depending on various factors such as the material used and its cost, the method of construction, the intended use, and the status of the wearer. Today, shahtoosh shawls are no longer made because of a ban on the trade of products made from the Tibetan antelope.

The definition of the Kashmir shawl has differed in India and in the West. In India, the shawl was worn by men, with the fineness of the shawl indicating nobility or royal favour. In the West, depending on the fashion of the moment, the Kashmir shawl represented different types of commodities, originally worn by men, but thereafter by women and then as decorative items in interior design. The definition has been confused through fakery and imitation. Scholars, vendors and journalists have sometimes mistakenly used the words cashmere and pashmina synonymously, or assumed that they are the same because they derive from the same animal. In reality, pashmina is a particularly fine form of cashmere, so all pashmina is cashmere, but not all cashmere is pashmina. In the late 19th century AD, weavers who had migrated to Punjab set up an imitation industry, applying the Kashmiri technique to Merino wool. The resulting shawls were called raffal, and have been classified by some as a species of Kashmir shawls, though the thicker wool means that they lack the distinctive lightness characteristic of the traditional Kashmir shawl. More recently, in the late 1990s, western European and American sellers adopted the more exotic word pashmina to sell plain-weave shawls made from generic cashmere. As a result, the associations with pashmina went from exclusive high fashion to middle-class popularity in 2000.

Kashmir shawls are traditionally made either of shahtoosh or pashmina. Shahtoosh wool comes from the fine hairs on the underbelly of the Tibetan antelope. Cashmere derives its name from the home of the Kashmir shawl, and is often incorrectly equated with pashmina. Pashmina and cashmere both come from the Changthangi goat, but pashmina is made from a fine subset of cashmere ranging from 12–16 microns, whereas generic cashmere ranges from 12–21 microns.

Shahtoosh shawls are made from the hair of the Tibetan antelope which averaging 7–10 microns in diameter, is the finest hair in the world. These derived only from wild animals, grown during the harsh winters and rubbed off on rocks and shrubs in the summer, from where they were collected for weaving. As the fineness of a shawl in India was traditionally seen as a mark of nobility, they were historically reserved for members of the Mughal aristocracy. In the mid-eighteenth century, they became popular after their use by Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and Empress Joséphine of France. In Mughal times, they became known as "ring shawls", for being extremely light, and fine enough that a one metre by two-metre shawl could be pulled whole through a finger ring. They remain known this way today. They today serve as status symbol, valued on average between USD $2,000 and $3,000, but for up to $15,000. Today, the export of shahtoosh shawls is banned under CITES and their production and sale banned under wildlife protection laws in India, China and Nepal. Domestic laws in the US prevent their sale.

The standard design of Kashmir shawl is the Kani shawl, named after the Kanihama village where it was originally produced. It is distinctive for using a variant of the "twill tapestry technique", referred to as such because of its similarity to European tapestry weaving techniques. However, it differs from tapestry weaving because the loom is horizontal instead of vertical, and its operation is closer to brocading. Kashmiri weavers used a distinctive technique, passing a weft over-and-under two warps. Using discontinuous wefts, it varied the weft colour and created distinct colour areas identical on both faces of the fabric. This also facilitated the creation of complex patterns like the buta to be woven onto the shawls.

The Kashmir shawl is closely associated with the Paisley shawl. The paisley design, originating in the buta, derives its name from the town of Paisley in Scotland, which became famous in the early 19th century for its imitation Kashmir shawls with the buta motif. After 1850, many English speakers used to refer to any shawl with the buta design, Kashmiri or otherwise, as a Paisley shawl. Missing fundamentals of the craftsmanship, imitations such as the Angola were short-lived.