Pashmina
Pashmina is made up of silk clothing which is made in Nepal only and export to other countries It is known as the “diamond fiber” and the “soft gold of high Asia” is one of the finest, softest and warmest wool found in nature. Pashmina is a pure Nepali word which comes from ‘pashm’. Pashm means inside hairs of CapraHircus.Pashmina is sometimes called ‘shamina’,’cashmere’ and sometimes it confused with ‘shatoosh’. Both Pashmina and Cashmere wool comes from CapraHircus wool and Shatoosh wool is comes from Tibetan antelopes. However, Pashmina is unlikely than Cashmere and Shatoosh. It’s wool is most finest, softest and warmest than Cashmere wool.Pashmina wool is comes from under belly of Caprahircus (chyngra), the mountain goat in the remote region of Himalayas above 10000 feet and inner Mongolian highlands , where is little vegetation and extremely cold winters. The hardly little goat Caprahircus live there. Nature blessed them with a very thin coat of hair, which is best insulation in the world. This inner hair is used to produce Pashmina.Each Pashmina hair is 1/6th diameter of human hair. It means Pashmina hair is only 12-14 microns thick. So Pashmina fabric is delicate and so fine that it can passes through a ring. Thus it is known as ring Pashmina. Pashmina is not only a finest, warmest and softest texture but also exotically silky texture. However, it may be called that Pashmina is an amazing exotic gift of nature.
Pashmina is an almost generic name for accessories made from a type wool that is obtained from a special breed of goat endemic to high altitudes of the Himalayan Range Belt of Asia. The name comes from Pashmineh, made from Persian pashm (= "wool"). The special goat's fleece has been used for thousands of years to make high-quality shawls that also bear the same name. The Himalayan Mountain goat, Carpa Hircus, sheds its winter coat every spring and the fleece is caught on thorn bushes. One goat sheds approximately 3-8 ounces of the fiber. Villages would scour the mountainside for the finest fleece to be used. Cashmere shawls have been manufactured in Kashmir and Nepal for thousands of years, but the Indians never called them "pashmina". They were popularly called Kashmiri wool shawls. The test for a quality pashmina has been warmth, feel and the passing the shawl through a wedding ring.
Pashmina is an indigenous Nepali word which only became popular after the so-named shawls, woven in Nepal, started being popular in the west. What are commonly thought of as pashminas have their origin in Nepal, where the people have a cultural heritage of hand-weaving pashmina shawls with the well-known fringing and hand dyeing.
Pashmina, meaning, " woven goat's wool" comes from the fleece of the central Asian mountain goat. This fleece is extremely fine and short and is protected by a thick covering of long, hard hairs, which serve to conserve the valuable undercoat.
Pashm, or unwoven goat's wool, is collected from goats living above the 4,500 meter (14,750ft) line in the Himalayan regions of northern India, Nepal and Tibet. The quality or fineness of the fleece is dependent upon the high altitudes because it develops on the goat to keep it warm. At lower altitudes, even as high as 3,500 meters, the goats are incapable of producing the fine underfleece.
After collections the pashm has traditionally been woven into pashmina and silk/ pashmina shawl production. Weaving has begun in Nepal and other parts of Northern India as well.
For centuries silk has often been woven with pashmina to give shawls a harder finish, strength and greater body. With the advent of the 1990s silk/ pashmina shawl, however new treatment processes have been added to obtain the objectives of extraordinary softness and fluffiness. These are achieved largely by brushing the freshly loomed shawls both before and after dying. The result is a luxurious and light feeling fabric which still manages to achieve the ancient pashmina standard of providing amazing warmth to its wearer.
Pashmina and silk/ pashmina shawls are hand woven by men as only they have the strength to throw the shuttle back and forth continuously.
Prior to weaving, the pashm wool is carded and spun by women. As the entire process is almost entirely done by hand, there are small natural flaws and slubs that make their way into virtually every shawl. This is normal and should be seen as a sign that the fabric has been hand loomed.
Dying is also done by hand. The undyed shawls are stirred, again by men into large pots of shimmering dye liquid. Periodically they are lifted to be inspected. When the desired colour is achieved, the shawls are rinsed, dried and treated. Because the entire dying process is done by hand some slight colour stiations can be expected.
Finishes can also differ because different dyes have different effects on the silk/ pashmina fabric. This explains why some light coloured shawls feel softer than other dark coloured ones. If they are from the same weaver, the only difference is from the effects of the dye. Care for your Pashmina
Pashmina shawls can be delicately hand washed in cold water with a light detergent such as woolite. They should then be rolled in a towel to remove excess water and laid flat to dry. To remove wrinkles pashmina shawls should either be steam pressed or lightly ironed under a pressing cloth. Silk/ pashmina shawls, however should be dry-cleaned. Although the contents are natural products, the silk and raised nap of the fabric cause silk/ pashmina shawls to wrinkle more easily. Because home pressing can often flatten the raised nap it is best to have silk/ pashmina professionally dry cleaned.
Pashmina Shawal
Pashmina shawls, exquisitely dyed and light to the touch, are this shopping season's must-have. Pashmina people will tell you that the fiber is the finest form of cashmere there is, and worth the high price ($500-plus for a high-end shawl) because the material is culled from the necks and bellies of Himalayan mountain goats, which live at altitudes of 12,000 to 14,000 feet. As the holiday season heats up, pashminas are everywhere, from Saks Fifth Avenue to Lands' End. Jim Rosenheim, owner of the Tiny Jewel Box in Washington, D.C., adds to the lore: "When they originally brought it to Scotland, they couldn't weave it on regular looms, pashmina is that fine."
Dhaka
Dhaka is one of the oldest and most important fabrics in Nepali culture. Dhaka topi, chaubandi cholo (blouse), daura suruwal and shawl are everyday wears for Nepalis. There are numerous accounts about Dhaka being initially brought from Bangladesh by the Rana rulers. Other evidence suggests that Muslim invasion in Eastern India, due to which the victims who were Dhaka weavers fled to Nepal and continued their profession here. Traditional Dhaka prints use red, black, white and orange. Dhaka weaving involves alertness, hard work and experience as each weaver produces distinctive pattern that doesn't match with another. Original Dhaka clothes are pure cotton and woven mostly in the eastern parts of Nepal like Terathum, Dang, Illam and Dhankuta. The original fabric is wrinkle free and less prone to discoloration. Dhakas are not only used for cholos and topis but also for bags, slippers, waistcoats, kurtas, cushion covers, ties, placemats, purse and so on*.
Nepai Carpet for Trade
Oriental carpets are one of the most popular products of Asia. Produced from the Middle East to China, they have long been known for their complex designs and rich colors. Traditionally, the dyes used to color the wool and other materials from which carpets are made were obtained from a variety of plants and other natural sources.
Most of the natural dyes were collected in the wild from sources such as oak tree galls, larkspur, woad, indigo, madder, and cochineal. Only a few of the sources, such as indigo, were intensively cultivated. As synthetic dyes were developed, reliance on natural dye sources diminished. Synthetic azo dyes (an acid direct dye that yields yellow or orange-red) were introduced to many weaving areas between 1875 and 1890. Synthetic indigo was developed in 1897, and by 1914, only 4% of the indigo produced was extracted from plants. As the carpet industry has grown and commercial production has demanded more reliable supplies, vegetable dyes have been largely replaced by synthetic dyes, including acid, reactive, chrome, and metal-complex formulations.
In the Kingdom of Nepal this has led to a major environmental problem with significant ecosystem implications, and also a major opportunity for industrial ecology. When the Chinese army occupied Tibet in the 1950s, a flood of refugees entered Nepal. The refugees brought with them their traditional carpet-weaving practices. Searching for income, they began making carpets, and in 1964, the first commercial shipment of hand-knotted carpets was exported from Nepal. Today the carpet industry is the largest industry in Nepal. In 1995/96, Nepal exported .9 million square meters of carpet, providing the country’s largest source of foreign income.
Hundreds of small producers make carpet in Nepal. Over 90% are located in the relatively small Kathmandu Valley. Imported wool is dyed in vats and woven into carpets. The carpets are then washed repeatedly before being trimmed to finish. The vast majority of dyes used are synthetics imported from European producers such as Sandoz and Ciba-Giegy. The dyeing process is largely done with few process controls and the transfer efficiency of dye onto the wool is often quite poor. Consequently, large quantities of dyes are discharged into the shallow rivers of the Kathmandu Valley. Waste dyes are the largest chemical pollutant of Nepal rivers, and the once-clean rivers of the Kathmandu Valley are now black.
A Nepali organization, the Institute for Legal Research and Resources (ILRR), is working with the carpet industry to investigate the feasibility of commercial-scale application of vegetable dyes to substitute for imported synthetic dyes. With financial support from the US-Asia Environmental Partnership, through the Asia Foundation, ILRR has hired two chemists to investigate the challenges to using vegetable dyes. These include color quality and fastness, but the most significant obstacle is obtaining sufficient supply. Many companies produce carpets according to orders from foreign buyers, and one company owner says that it would take six months to get sufficient "traditional" vegetable dyes for a typical order.
Yet the advantages of overcoming these obstacles are striking. Imported dyes are the second-biggest expense to the Nepal carpet industry, after imported wool, and one for which scarce foreign exchange must be used. If vegetable dyes could be grown in Nepal in sufficient quantity it would significantly improve the balance of payments of the country. It would also potentially reduce carpet production costs and make Nepali carpets more competitive in the global carpet market. This economic rationale is increasing the interest of the Nepal government in the ILRR project.
The environmental and health implications are also significant. The metals in imported synthetic dyes are carried downstream from Kathmandu through thousands of miles of Indian rivers, potentially affecting millions of people. Dozens of carpet dyers are known to have suffered acute health problems from contact with the synthetic dyes and are probably the tip of the iceberg. It is estimated that the Nepal carpet industry employs between 100,000 and 300,000 people, many of whom come into contact with raw dyestuffs regularly and who can be expected to have chronic if not acute reactions to the chemicals.
Production of vegetable dyes could also benefit Nepal’s agricultural economy. One of the world’s poorest countries, Nepal greatly needs new kinds of cash crops. The impact of diverting the tens of millions of dollars currently paid to European dye producers to Nepal farmers would be significant.
The carpet market is quite responsive to the use of vegetable dyes. Major carpet dealers distinguish vegetable-dyed from synthetic-dyed carpets for their customers although they usually argue that vegetable dyes are not necessarily of better durability (and in the case of acidic black tannin dyes the durability is worse). Germany is the biggest importer of Nepalese carpets with 80% of the purchases, and German buyers are increasingly conscious of the use of synthetic dyes that have negative environmental effects. The carpet industry has a product labeling system called Rugmark that represents carpets made without the use of child labor, and the Rugmark Nepal Foundation is considering expanding the use of the label to cover environmentally responsible production as well. There is therefore a potential market-driven mechanism to promote vegetable dye use in the carpet industry.
Some dye producers are specializing in natural dyes specifically to respond to market demand. One company based in Colorado, Allegro Natural Dyes, Inc., produces a full range of dye colors from five natural sources: indigo, osage, madder, cutch, and cochineal.
Know-how for large-scale vegetable dyeing is increasing. According to several American carpet dealers interviewed by the author, in the past twenty years there has been a huge increase in the quantity and variety of new vegetable dyed rugs available. The trend began in western Turkey in the late 1960's, but knowledge of vegetable dyeing has now been re-introduced into Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, and Nepal.
Current know-how is augmented by an extensive literature on natural dyes, dating back centuries. For example, the book Dyer's Instructor, by pattern dyer David Smith, was published in 1860 with nearly 800 recipes for dyes. Now hobbyists and return-to-nature advocates are adding rapidly to the resources available. Over a dozen books on natural dyes have been published in the last few decades.
Despite these resources, Nepal faces significant challenges in substituting locally-grown vegetable dyes for imported synthetics. Research is needed on the types of dye plants that would grow best in Nepal’s varied climatic conditions. If sufficient quantities can be produced, extensive quality control will need to be instituted to satisfy foreign buyers who want large lots of identical carpets. Although vegetable dyes are free of heavy metals, it is not clear that they produce less biological or chemical oxygen demand in wastewaters, or that they do not cause adverse health effects in some workers. Integrating Nepal’s carpet and agricultural industries would likely run into other challenges that are now unforeseen. Perhaps the greatest challenge will be getting the various organizations in Nepal that would be affected by the change to cooperate with each other. However, the economic opportunity is significant, the market is responsive, and there are good indicators that the concept is technically feasible. And success would mean that industrial ecology is real enough to walk on.
Oriental carpets are one of the most popular products of Asia. Produced from the Middle East to China, they have long been known for their complex designs and rich colors. Traditionally, the dyes used to color the wool and other materials from which carpets are made were obtained from a variety of plants and other natural sources.
Most of the natural dyes were collected in the wild from sources such as oak tree galls, larkspur, woad, indigo, madder, and cochineal. Only a few of the sources, such as indigo, were intensively cultivated. As synthetic dyes were developed, reliance on natural dye sources diminished. Synthetic azo dyes (an acid direct dye that yields yellow or orange-red) were introduced to many weaving areas between 1875 and 1890. Synthetic indigo was developed in 1897, and by 1914, only 4% of the indigo produced was extracted from plants. As the carpet industry has grown and commercial production has demanded more reliable supplies, vegetable dyes have been largely replaced by synthetic dyes, including acid, reactive, chrome, and metal-complex formulations.
In the Kingdom of Nepal this has led to a major environmental problem with significant ecosystem implications, and also a major opportunity for industrial ecology. When the Chinese army occupied Tibet in the 1950s, a flood of refugees entered Nepal. The refugees brought with them their traditional carpet-weaving practices. Searching for income, they began making carpets, and in 1964, the first commercial shipment of hand-knotted carpets was exported from Nepal. Today the carpet industry is the largest industry in Nepal. In 1995/96, Nepal exported .9 million square meters of carpet, providing the country’s largest source of foreign income.
Hundreds of small producers make carpet in Nepal. Over 90% are located in the relatively small Kathmandu Valley. Imported wool is dyed in vats and woven into carpets. The carpets are then washed repeatedly before being trimmed to finish. The vast majority of dyes used are synthetics imported from European producers such as Sandoz and Ciba-Giegy. The dyeing process is largely done with few process controls and the transfer efficiency of dye onto the wool is often quite poor. Consequently, large quantities of dyes are discharged into the shallow rivers of the Kathmandu Valley. Waste dyes are the largest chemical pollutant of Nepal rivers, and the once-clean rivers of the Kathmandu Valley are now black.
A Nepali organization, the Institute for Legal Research and Resources (ILRR), is working with the carpet industry to investigate the feasibility of commercial-scale application of vegetable dyes to substitute for imported synthetic dyes. With financial support from the US-Asia Environmental Partnership, through the Asia Foundation, ILRR has hired two chemists to investigate the challenges to using vegetable dyes. These include color quality and fastness, but the most significant obstacle is obtaining sufficient supply. Many companies produce carpets according to orders from foreign buyers, and one company owner says that it would take six months to get sufficient "traditional" vegetable dyes for a typical order.
Yet the advantages of overcoming these obstacles are striking. Imported dyes are the second-biggest expense to the Nepal carpet industry, after imported wool, and one for which scarce foreign exchange must be used. If vegetable dyes could be grown in Nepal in sufficient quantity it would significantly improve the balance of payments of the country. It would also potentially reduce carpet production costs and make Nepali carpets more competitive in the global carpet market. This economic rationale is increasing the interest of the Nepal government in the ILRR project.
The environmental and health implications are also significant. The metals in imported synthetic dyes are carried downstream from Kathmandu through thousands of miles of Indian rivers, potentially affecting millions of people. Dozens of carpet dyers are known to have suffered acute health problems from contact with the synthetic dyes and are probably the tip of the iceberg. It is estimated that the Nepal carpet industry employs between 100,000 and 300,000 people, many of whom come into contact with raw dyestuffs regularly and who can be expected to have chronic if not acute reactions to the chemicals.
Production of vegetable dyes could also benefit Nepal’s agricultural economy. One of the world’s poorest countries, Nepal greatly needs new kinds of cash crops. The impact of diverting the tens of millions of dollars currently paid to European dye producers to Nepal farmers would be significant.
The carpet market is quite responsive to the use of vegetable dyes. Major carpet dealers distinguish vegetable-dyed from synthetic-dyed carpets for their customers although they usually argue that vegetable dyes are not necessarily of better durability (and in the case of acidic black tannin dyes the durability is worse). Germany is the biggest importer of Nepalese carpets with 80% of the purchases, and German buyers are increasingly conscious of the use of synthetic dyes that have negative environmental effects. The carpet industry has a product labeling system called Rugmark that represents carpets made without the use of child labor, and the Rugmark Nepal Foundation is considering expanding the use of the label to cover environmentally responsible production as well. There is therefore a potential market-driven mechanism to promote vegetable dye use in the carpet industry.
Some dye producers are specializing in natural dyes specifically to respond to market demand. One company based in Colorado, Allegro Natural Dyes, Inc., produces a full range of dye colors from five natural sources: indigo, osage, madder, cutch, and cochineal.
Know-how for large-scale vegetable dyeing is increasing. According to several American carpet dealers interviewed by the author, in the past twenty years there has been a huge increase in the quantity and variety of new vegetable dyed rugs available. The trend began in western Turkey in the late 1960's, but knowledge of vegetable dyeing has now been re-introduced into Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, and Nepal.
Current know-how is augmented by an extensive literature on natural dyes, dating back centuries. For example, the book Dyer's Instructor, by pattern dyer David Smith, was published in 1860 with nearly 800 recipes for dyes. Now hobbyists and return-to-nature advocates are adding rapidly to the resources available. Over a dozen books on natural dyes have been published in the last few decades.
Despite these resources, Nepal faces significant challenges in substituting locally-grown vegetable dyes for imported synthetics. Research is needed on the types of dye plants that would grow best in Nepal’s varied climatic conditions. If sufficient quantities can be produced, extensive quality control will need to be instituted to satisfy foreign buyers who want large lots of identical carpets. Although vegetable dyes are free of heavy metals, it is not clear that they produce less biological or chemical oxygen demand in wastewaters, or that they do not cause adverse health effects in some workers. Integrating Nepal’s carpet and agricultural industries would likely run into other challenges that are now unforeseen. Perhaps the greatest challenge will be getting the various organizations in Nepal that would be affected by the change to cooperate with each other. However, the economic opportunity is significant, the market is responsive, and there are good indicators that the concept is technically feasible. And success would mean that industrial ecology is real enough to walk on.
Welcome to Nepal the enchanted country of the world to the entire visitor who want to visit overseas for there fun, enjoy etc. You will find here the culture of Nepal where it shows the real culture of Nepal. The festivals of Nepal where you will come to know that what types of festival is celebrating in this country in which months. You will know the national dress of Nepal and know about the dress code of Nepal for men's and women's and the people who are from different casts who wears different types of clothing's, about the historical things of Nepal, about fashion of this generations. That places where you have to must go after you reach Nepal for Visit. At last, Nepal is one of the hilly region so after the visitor come to Nepal they want to trekking which shows to you where to trek and what equipments you have to bring belongs with you... etc............!!
