by Linda Berry Walker

Chic, upscale buyers had a new choice this winter when shopping for the newest designer fashions in outerwear! Llama fiber, woven and brushed to create a sumptuous, luxurious napped fabric was the choice of more than one high-end designer! Noted American designer, Bill Blass, has long been known for his classic style.

As a 30-year veteran of fashion designer natural fiber usage trends, I see Blass’ use of llama fiber signalling a broad-based textile acceptance of llama fiber. It will create a demand for llama fiber not only from consumers, but from other designers as well. Validation of this trend can be seen in Saks Fifth Avenue’s product line, which featured Blass’ coat alongside their own.

The market demand for highly napped, fur-like fabrics is not a surprising one, given the ten-year trend away from outerwear fur fabrics, which require the animal be killed for its pelt. Silky and suri llamas, like alpacas, are shorn annually, producing greater than 10 lbs. of very homogenous fiber averaging 6” in length.¹ Fake furs, made from synthetic fibers, are now widespread, but fail to meet the criteria of a luxurious feeling, soft-handling fabric. Few natural fibers can be finished in such a way as to create a highly napped fabric, which comes closest to feeling like fur pelts. Napped fabric from long-stapled fibers can best be described as “pettable” to those layman unfamiliar with the feel. Natural fibers most often used for napped coat fabrics include mohair, suri alpaca and single-coated silky/suri llama.

Mohair, produced by angora goats, coarsens as the goat ages. A kid clip will be in the range of 23–30 microns while a yearling clip or finer young goat clip averages 31–55 microns, with adult clips ranging from 36–40 microns.² Suri alpacas and llamas are considerably finer to begin with, and have the added advantage of not coarsening to the same extent with age. Single-coated young llama fleeces tested in the U.S. are often 16–20 microns³, and thus make a better handling fabric than mohair. For designers looking for a sumptuous, soft-handling fabric the coat wearer will want to touch and caress, napped llama fabric ranks high!

Suri fleeces, from both alpacas and llamas, are also known for their luster, another fur-like characteristic. One of the most appealing attributes of a high-quality sable mink is its lustrous sheen, which suri can come closest to replicating.

The napping technique is used by both European and South American mills for other luxury fibers like vicuna to enhance the hand of the finished product. Italian-based Loro Piana uses the napping process developed for their vicuna products for their cashmere product line as well. Shortstapled fibers like cashmere and vicuna, although exquisite to touch, do not have the staple length of suri which is needed to create more of the look and feel of fur.

Another exclusive benefit offered to fashion designers utilizing llama, as well as alpaca fibers, is the wide range of natural colors, many of which replicate fur colors. The rich chestnut brown of a sable mink is not easily duplicated elsewhere in the animal kingdom, except by llamas and alpacas! The coats pictured here feature the cremello colored fiber found extensively in llamas; also known as light fawn in alpacas.

The timing for a suri fiber initiative within the USA is right! The designer demand is present. The raw fiber supply is available. Now all that is needed is a cooperative effort to collect and process what remains as one of the best kept textile secrets—suri!

¹ From WoodsEdge fiber production records.
² Robin Russo’s Fiber Basics: The Magic of Mohair, Spin.Off Magazine.
³ Statistic compiled from micron counts published by llama breeders nationwide.

©2004 WoodsEdge Wools Farm LLC