World Premiere:
Zimmerli Sea Island
Limited Availability
First Come - First Serve
Orders May Be Sent in Two Shipments
Sea Island is the rarest and most expensive cotton in the world. Characterized by the softest Extra Long Staple yarns with a touch more body than any other E.L.S. cotton, Certified Sea Island is grown only in the optimal conditions of the West Indian Carribean islands. This best-of-the-best constitutes only 0.0004% of the world's cotton!
Men's Sea Island Crew Shirt
No artisan would be more appropriate to create this majestic experience than Zimmerli of Switzerland, whose Swiss heritage dates back to 1871. Sea Island by Zimmerli completely redefines the underwear experience. Simply stated, Sea Island combines the natural silky sheen and softness of cashmere with the durability of fine merino wool. Its incomparable fineness makes the person wearing it feel on top of the world.
Women's Sea Island S/S Top
We are producing these inimitable gems at a very slow pace for quality reasons. Most first orders will be partially shipped with a follow-up shipment as soon as more are available. Orders for more than 12 pieces will be filled strictly on a multiple-shipment, as-available basis.
Men's Sea Island Boxer Brief
Six models for men and three tops for women ranging from $95 to $165 are available. For men we offer tank, v-neck, and crewneck shirts as well as a brief, boxer brief, and boxer. The distaff will be able to enjoy their choice of three tops (Short, mid, and long sleeved versions) until mid-2011. After that, if design considerations permit, women's panties will be introduced.
Women's Sea Island L/S Top
Each Zimmerli of Switzerland
Sea Island will be presented in our
beautiful embossed Sea Island
box with magnetic catch.
The Perfect storage ...
for the
Finest of garments
Sea Island Storage Box
A Few Holiday Gift Ideas...
Pure Silk Zimmerli Negligee
Zimmerli Pureness Shawl
Bodysuit
Zimmerli Cocoon Lounge/WarmUp
Begg: World's Finest
Scarves
Zimmerli: Belle de
Jour
Just Arrived from Milano:
Women's ExtraFine Merino
Over-the-Knee Socks
See the Full Story Right >>>
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Greetings!
Manufacturers taking shortcuts in the creation of purportedly high-quality
products is one of my pet peeves. The plethora of furnishings and accessories available on today's market is a haven for false claims of quality and spurious assertions of traditional old-world craftsmanship. The verisimilitude of value has simply vanished. This month, in a timely episode, I'll focus on the various available qualities of cashmere socks. The Caveat Emptor Series article appears below.
Switzerland: From Zimmerli, we are pleased to host the world premiere of the brand new Sea Island for men and women. It is now on the web site. See the article to the left.
Italy: The distaff can
revel not only in the new Sea Island. We finally completed our exclusive Merino Over-the-Knee socks palette and brought them online this week. See below.
Here at home: The Holidays are fast approaching. With more than 800 luxury items now available, we want to be your gift headquarters for the special folks in your life. There are a few ideas here. Need more help? Just call us any time.
Best regards,
Joelle Kelly & Alexander Kabbaz
In Response: Due to the number
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Caveat Emptor Series:
Cashmere Sock Quality |
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by
Alexander S.
Kabbaz, Master Artisan
Mainly from October to February, the word "Cashmere" evokes thoughts of incomparably soft luxury and cozy warmth in the mind of the consumer. As a gift, none is more universally, warmly received. The mindset of the retailer is vastly different. Their concept of the world's ultimate fleece reverses the buyer's concept and becomes: mere cash. Retailers know all-too-well that invoking "cashmere" in the title of merchandise enables customer fleecing virtually impossible with all other goods. Hence this tome, by the end of which you will hopefully no longer be one of the fleeced.
Cashmere basics are this: The incomparable fibre is combed or sheared from goats, mostly during April and May. The resulting crop consists of the underhairs, or down, and the "guard hairs", coarser outer hairs which exist to protect the under hairs. Subsequently, better cashmere is cleaned by various methods to remove the guard hairs and leave mostly the fine, luxurious, underdown. Lesser qualities of cashmere are not as well cleaned and will contain a high percentage of the much less desirable guard hair. There are many technical specifications inherent in selecting the best. You'll find most of them at the end of this article. But first, here are the major factors.
Percentage of Cashmere in the Socks
Although cashmere can be used as the only fibre in a sock, the majority available are cashmere blends. Some of these contain as little as 7% cashmere; rare is the item with more than 50% if the inimitable fibre. Often the word cashmere will be in the title with no indication that it is a blend.
At times you'll see "cashmere blend". Better retailers will state right from the outset what percentage is cashmere, e.g. "80/20 Cashmere Socks", or indicate what constitutes the blend, e.g.: "Cashmere/Silk Socks".
A typical "cashmere blend" currently being offered by one of the supposedly better retailers is really 26% Viscose, 26% Nylon, 30% Merino, and 18% Cashmere.
In other words, 52% of the fibers are actually synthetic and another 30% an undefined quality of wool!
When a top quality 80/20 cashmere sock retails for $67 and the one with a mere 18% cashmere is selling for $30, you can see what I mean by "mere cash": Socks containing less than 25% the cashmere content are not worth almost half the price of the real thing.
Note here that cashmere properly blended with silk can create a sock with the better advantages of both fibres. Some cash-silk socks are extremely durable. The best are about half cashmere and 20% silk with some nylon for elasticity and durability.
What Kind of Cashmere Is It?
Enough with the percentage of cashmere. What kind of cashmere is it? Assuming for the moment that all cashmeres are created equal - which they most certanly are not - what has the maker done with the cashmere? Have they spun it into a thick, space-eating fuzzy yarn, not many of which are required ... or have they gone the true quality route, used thinner yarns, and twisted two fine yarns together to make a twisted two-ply?
What's the difference? A thick, single-ply yarn (called "singles") not only occupies a great deal of space - requiring less yarn - but also degrades at 6-8 times the rate of a twisted two-ply yarn! In practical terms, singles will wear out and often begin developing holes as soon as the fifth laundering. Properly cared for two-ply cashmere sock yarns are easily good for 30-40 washings. And if you think that "blend" is often obvious by its absence, I don't recall ever seening a sock maker define the ply of the yarns they use.
Twisted Ply Yarns - Why So Important?
Because it is probably the single most important factor in the durability of cashmere socks, here is a more complete explanation of the significance of twisted two-ply yarns. When raw fibres are spun into yarn, the ends of the fibres are not held into the yarn by anything. It is merely the twisting action of spinning which holds two the two raw fibres together. The ends of the yarns are what can be felt as "fuzz" and they are free to do what they wish. What they wish most of all is to get loose and be able to form what are commonly called "pills".
Alternatively, twisting two thinner yarns together causes each yarn to hold in place the ends of the fibres in the other yarn.
The inset circle clearly shows the two twisted plies
How can you know if the socks you are considering were made from two-ply yarns? One way would be to cut off the tops and see if you can untwist the loose yarns as we did for the photo. Not so practical! The other would be to ask the retailer. As more than 99% of the cashmere socks available today are made from singles, the most probable answer you will receive is "Huh?"
Why? Most retailers don't even know and worse, could care less. They buy by price and perceive lower price as a better sales attribute. The fact of the matter is that a $40-50 sock which develops holes after 10 (I'm being generous) launderings cost $5 per wearing. In the alternative, consider the $70 two-ply sock: 40 washings. $1.75 per wearing. Which was a better value?
Wrap Up: The Caveat Emptor:
To wrap up this overview of top quality cashmere socks, here the main points of which you should be aware:
- Look for a high (more than half; preferably at least 70%) percentage of cashmere.
- Two-ply yarns. Be pushy. Ask. If the answer is "I don't know", search on, MacDuff.
- A reasonable price. Top quality cashmere socks do not sell for $18 or even $48. 70-80% cashmeres are in the $70-$80 range as are the better cashmere-silk blends. Good 100% cashmeres range from $90 to $200
Technical Overview: For the True Afficionado
Technical Elements of cashmere quality include:
- Animal Species Capra Hircus Blythi
- Fibre diameter in microns
- Fibre length in millimeters
- Fibre color on the cashmere color scale
- Percentage of cashmere in the yarn blend
- Type of cashmere/Country of Origin
- Ply of the yarns and Yarn size
Fibre Diameter: The American Society of Testing Materials offers world's the only official definition as "the underhair of goats which hairs do not exceed 29 microns in diameter". There is, by the way, no such thing as a "cashmere goat", rather it refers to the under hair of many types of goats. Back to the microns - and you can already see the wiggling room for retailers: Quality cashmere is less than 19 microns in diameter, or 33% finer than the ASTM standard. The thinner the fibre, the softer and warmer the resulting fabric. Each goat will yield about 1/2 pound of cashmere.
Men's || High Quality Italian-made Cashmere Socks || Women's
Fibre length: The ASTM standard does not specify a fibre length. Even some of the short, coarse guard hairs would qualify to be called "cashmere". In Dong Sheng, Mongolia, the true world capital of quality cashmere, anyone claiming a fibre length of less than 28 millimeters to be cashmere would be laughed at. Preferred fibers range from 28 to 32 mm in length. Fibre length is important. When spun into yarn, the longer the fibre, the fewer the "joints". Joints do not feel as smooth as the hairs and they can also come apart casuing pilling.
Fibre color: The best and most expensive cashmere originates mainly in the Chinese provinces of Ningxia and Inner Mongolia and is known as China White (WW). It is extremely fine and pure white. It is also extremely expensive. Other notable cashmeres are produced in Afghanistan and New Zealand. Also extremely fine but not usable for lighter color yarns are WC (white down with colored guard hair), GY (colored down with colored guard hair) and Mongolia Brown (BR) (dark down and dark guard hair). These are used to dye darker colors.
Percentage of cashmere in the blend: As one who keeps constant track what is available, I have seen many more retailers offering "cashmere" socks containing as little as 7% in the blend. Naturally, the word Cashmere is in the title in large bold type; the list of what constitutes the other 93% lies buried somewhere below the shipping information ... if it is there at all. And (see above) what type of "cashmere" constitutes that 7%? As far as we're concerned, if it isn't at least 50% cashmere, then "cashmere" should not be in the title!
Cashmere type/Country of Origin: Aside from the distinctions noted in the fibre color section, country of origin is also important. Cashmeres from Afghanistan and New Zealand, while a bit shy on the micron characteristic, are said to be stronger than the Chinese varieties. Therefore, a blend of mainly Chinese for softness with a bit of Afghani and New Zealand intertwined for strength will yield a stronger soft yarn than one which is solely Chinese.
Yarn ply and Yarn size: Sock yarns are either single ply or twisted two-ply. Commonly used yarn numbers are 1/14 (singles) and 2/28 (twisted two-ply). Both yarns will fill roughly the same amount of space on the finished sock. For many reasons, the 2/28 is more expensive to make than the 1/14 singles. However, as noted above, 2/28 is much more durable and therefore offers much higher value over time.
Thank you for your time.
Copyright � 2010 Alexander S. Kabbaz, All
Rights
Reserved
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World Premiere:
Over-the-Knee Merinos! |
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Just in From Milano - About a year ago, we began working with Marcoliani*Milano on designing an exclusive new solid color merino Over-the-Knee for the distaff. We're happy to announce that they arrived last week and are now available. Flat knitted rather than ribbed for a special appearance, these are made of our renowned 80% ExtraFine Merino/20% Nylon blend.
Beyond that, the photos here and on the left tell the rest of the story. Click here to see the color range.
Women's Extrafine Merino O.T.K Socks - NEW!
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Holidays in 6 Weeks
Don't Miss Our Gift Page! |
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We Want To Be Your Gift Headquarters!
Visit our Gift Page for ideas ... or just call us any time. We'll be happy to offer suggestions for the special people in your life.
U.S.: 866-267-7909 Int'l: +01-631-267-7909
Custom Cashmere Cardigan: A Perfect Gift
Scott & Charters Custom Made
12-Ply Shawl
Collar Cashmere Cardigan
Available in more than 200 Colors
For Guys or Gals
Shown in color Camelia
Order by November 15 for Christmas Delivery
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