When you work as a webshop with luxury wool, you very quickly encounter the problem that cashmere can be spelled in different ways. Officially, there are two variants used in Denmark, with a c and with a k. So when you use the c spelling, Google doesn't quite catch that you are also talking about the other version and vice versa.
The confusion is also increased by the fact that (in Denmark) there is an orchestra and a region that is spelled Kashmir. And the region Kashmir is actually what it is about. You can see that when you search further in Google.
The origin
The material gets its name from the Kashmir province in northern India, where the first historical accounts of the use of cashmere come from. It was in the province's old capital Srinagar at the foot of the Himalayan mountains, which was a lively trading town for centuries, that the shawls that would later become so famous, also in Europe, first began to be produced in earnest. Kashmir was an important point on the Silk Route and unfortunately then as now (divided between India, China and Pakistan), a conflict zone. Although the use of goat hair for both clothing and carpets had actually been common for a few thousand years, it was not until the 15th century when nomads with herds of the wild Changra goat came down from Tibet and Punjab with the wool that they combed from the goats' bellies that real cashmere production began. Srinagar also became the home of weaving thin shawls, a technique that had been introduced from Persia and combined with the new raw material, led to the first cashmere shawls. However, the local raw material from the Changra goat was only used to a limited extent. As is the case today, most of the raw cashmere comes from China and Mongolia.
A product for the upper class
At that time, shawls were exclusively used by the upper class and the court; either as a shawl, decorative scarf or even a turban. And when it later came to Europe, it was the rich who used it. This happened at the end of the 1700s via the Silk Route, which brought it to Egypt, India and Turkey and from there to Europe. The story of Emperor Napoleon's first wife Josephine, who reportedly owned 60 cashmere shawls, which amounted to an unimaginable fortune, is very well known. Napoleon came across these shawls during the war in Egypt at the end of the 1700s. The officers of the Turkish army that he fought against wore these long shawls over their uniforms, and the first cashmere shawls thus came to Europe as war souvenirs! From here, cashmere shawls went on their victorious march all over the world. Exactly when the use of the spelling "cashmere" became common is not known, but it is said that it is an old spelling for the Kashmir province, and in that way it has become established and the circle has been closed.
