Ah, cashmere. What's not to love? So soft, so cosy ... and when it's something from Loro Piana, well, we are instantly attached. The uber luxe Italian knitwear house has been sourcing its threads from Mongolia since the early Eighties. Now brothers Pier Luigi and Sergio Loro Piana have written Baby Cashmere (Skira), which tells the story of how, over a 10 year period, the family convinced Mongolian goat herders to start separating the highly prized wool combed from juvenile Hircus goats from the wool they shave off adults of the species. (Goats are combed only once in their lifetime, before their first birthday, and shed only 30 grams of the ultra-silky fiber.) Bruna Rotunno's photographs of the baby goats are pretty amazing. And it all gives you a new appreciation for that $995 scarf we've been eyeing.
