Eco-friendly cashmere
「エコなカシミヤ」と聞いて多くの人は、僅かで曖昧で何となくの前向きな印象のかけらだけを残して、記憶の中の忘却の淵に置いてきてしまう事が普通だと思っています。
あまりにも「エコな何か」や「カシミヤの何か」が氾濫しているから。
この素材がユニークだったのは、そもそも衣類用に適していない粗いカシミヤ山羊の原毛を紡績し、寝具用の織物糸として確立されていた事でした。
ムーブメントとしてのエコなカシミヤは、一部の落ちワタ原毛を衣類用に適している原毛に少量を混ぜエコ的なストーリーと共に糸を紡ぎます。だけどこの素材は初めから落ちワタ原毛を主としているのです。でもそれは、優しいイメージだけでは無く糸にしてからのプロセスは非常にタフになります。例えば染色の際、テンダーといわれる切れやすい毛（短く粗い原毛は切れやすく先染めが困難である。）の問題もあり原毛や糸の状態で染めることはありません。当然、編み物用に使うのは不可能であるという共通認識がありましたし、元来そのようなアプローチのアイデアがどこにも無かったので、ヒントを得るにも試行錯誤を重ねる他に方法はありませんでした。
尤もそういった難問が私たちの創作意欲を喚起し、数十パターンの撚糸工程及び編立工程を経て、成型で編成できるスペックにまで改良出来た素材となります。
そして高貴なカシミヤの佇まい、感触のアイデンティティを損なわず、廉価に落としこむ事が出来ました。
英語では「環境に配意した」という表現で”eco-friendly” という形容詞が確立されていますが、特にそのような事を意識せずとも結果的に落ちワタ原毛を使い、無染色の“Eco-friendly cashmere”になる事が無理の無いエコなアイデアだと思っています。
Many people tend to think that when they hear the term ‘eco-friendly cashmere’, it is buried far in the memory, leaving only a few, vague and somewhat positive impressions.
This is because we are so inundated with ‘eco something’ and ‘cashmere something’.
What made this material unique was that it was established as a woven yarn for bedding, spun from coarse cashmere goat’s hair, which was not suitable for clothing in the first place.
As a movement, Eco Friendly Cashmere spins yarns with an ecological story by mixing some of the raw wool for garments with the raw wool that has fallen out. However, this material has been made from fallen raw wool as the main raw material from the start. But it is not only its gentle image that makes the process of turning it into yarn difficult. For example, there is the problem of ‘tenders’ (short, coarse raw hairs that break easily and are difficult to dye into yarn) during dyeing. Because of the tender problem, the raw wool or yarn cannot be dyed into yarn in its raw wool or yarn state. Naturally, the common understanding was that it could not be used for knitting, and since such an idea had not originally been thought of anywhere, it had to be done by trial and error.
The most difficult problem of all was to stimulate our creativity. After dozens of yarn twists and knitting patterns, we were able to improve the material to knitting specifications.
It was possible to create a low-cost version without losing the look and feel identity of noble cashmere.
Eco-friendly is a well-established adjectival expression in English for ‘environmentally friendly’, but we didn’t need to be particularly conscious of this to create Eco-friendly Cashmere, which uses raw wool that has fallen out and is not dyed.
We believe that using fallen raw wool and producing ‘eco-friendly cashmere’ without dyeing is a reasonable eco-friendly concept, even if we are not particularly conscious of it.
DIRECTION：PLOTOTYPE, DIGAWEL
CATEGORY：KNIT WEAR
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN：JAPAN
MATERIAL：Cashmere 100％
STOKIST：DIGAWEL