According to the oxford English dictionary, pashm, from the Persian word for "wool", refers to the under fur of certain Tibetan animals, particularly goats, commonly used for making shawls. In contrast, pashmina, as we see it on the Internet and in fashion magazines, is a textile blend of silk and cashmere with a host of sites offering cashmere shawls and scarves as the years' trendiest fashion fabric. In the bewildering commercialization of the fabric, we have somewhere lost the true meaning and the value of the luxurious fiber.

Pashmina is not the esteemed blend of silk and cashmere; as a matter of fact cashmere itself is not a synonym to pashmina. Pashmina is the higher grade of cashmere. Pashmina comes from the inner coat of the underbelly and the neck of the animal (goat), which are softest in the animal's anatomy (where the fiber is longer and denser), where as cashmere comes from the other parts and are coarser compared to pashmina.

Our raw material as pashmina comes from a certain species of goat called the" chyangra"(in nepali language) indigenous to the high altitudes of the Himalayas in Nepal, the Tibetan plateau and the Mongolian deserts. We collect the fiber either by shearing or combing the animal during the molting season. The goats molt during the spring season for few weeks. Hand sorting is followed for coarse hairs that is molted after which the fiber is washed to remove dirt and grease gathered in the collection process. The scoured material undergoes a process called the dehairing, which removes the coarse outer guard hair. At the end of this process, the pashmina is ready to be spun into yarns for weaving and knitting purposes.