Angora wool: A fluffy warmth

Angora wool: A fluffy warmth

The immensely soft, knitting wool fiber, renowned for its fluffiness and warmth is not produced by any goat, sheep or yak, the finished fabric provided to us comes all the way from a most pleasant and peacefull animal, a Rabbit. Known by the name Angora Rabbit is famous worldwide for the production of Angora Wool used to make sweaters, scarves and many more winter wears. The luxurious, shiny, lightweight and comfortable characteristics possessed makes it worth loving.

Loft and floting feel of angora wool

For the production, the fur of the Angora Rabbit is harvested by shearing, combing or pulling out the hair from different parts of body. The fiber is basically 10-13 microns in diameter which makes it impossible to spun the pure angora wool fabric, thus the later is mixed with other soft fibers like cashmere (a wool type) or lambswool. The hollowness of the fiber provides it the loft and floating feel.

Warmth and softness of Angora wool

The history of Angora Wool began with its use in Turkey for centuries and later gained popularity in Europe, has a vast production network in China recently. While in India the production units are laid in northern parts. Other countries like US, Chile etc. also provide. The wool is mostly got confused by Mohair, a type of wool produced by Angora Goat as both types has similar names of animal sources.

There are different breeds found in different countries for production some of them are:

·           English breed: Mainly of 2-3.5 kgs produces large amount of fur. It is needed to be combed regularly in order to have tangle and debris free.

·          French breed: 3.5-4.5 kgs of weight of a rabbit, provides variety of colors for wool.

·          Satin breed: The most shiny, soft fur with satiny appearance possess high color                saturation that is, it easily absorbes colors. The weight is of 3-4 kgs.

·          Giant breed: The largest that is 9 kgs most often appears in white shades.

The production varies with colours too, white, tan, grey, brown and black are in common.
The Angora Wool got banned due to its harvesting techniques and being cruel with animals. As in many production units the rabbits were being clipped and sheared for the fur and were left fully bald. Instead of those, later new ones initiated, in which the combing and pulling out gently made it permissible again. This is the best way since it is time consuming, could be done for several days as different areas of rabbit shed at different times, so would not left bald and does produce best fiber.

So lets have an Angora Wool fabric in our collection for this winter.