I remember hearing about the legendary “ring shawls” that rich Indian women have been buying for years. “So warm that you could wear it on a holiday in the Himalayas and yet so fine that it could pass through a ring”, I remember my posse of Gujerati aunties talking as lovingly about these shawls in their possession, as they did of their grandchildren.
I was always told that the wool was taken from the “chin hair of a mountain goat.” A common misconception apparently, according to the Endangered Species Handbook. It was only years later while I was making a documentary about tigers in India, that I interviewed the conservationist who told me about the highly illegal the trade in Shahtoosh.
The Tibetan antelope or chiru produces this wool – considered more valuable than gold. And the animal has been protected by CITES (The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) since 1979. At first the quality and trade in this wool was limited to the rarified atmosphere of the wealthy circles of South Asia, but unfortunately word spread. And despite its highly protected status, the slaughter of and trade in shahtoosh is flourishing, due partly to misconceptions similar to those spread by my Gujerati aunties.
This from the above mentioned Handook:
The New York luxury department store, Bergdorf Goodman, advertised shahtoosh in 1995 as a “royal and rare” fabric, making incorrect statements about the wool having been obtained from the Mountain Ibex goat of Tibet which “sheds its down undercoat by scratching itself against low trees and bushes” from where it is gathered by local shepherds (Schaller 1998).
The conservationist I interviewed told me that shahtoosh is collected not from animals shedding their undercoat, but their lives – adults, babies, the lot. And the big bucks on offer for their skins is literally wiping them off the face of our planet.
In the early 20th century there were millions of these antelope on the Tibetan plateau, by 1990 there were an estimated 200,000. Early this century, the count was down to 50,000 with entire herds disappearing.
And after a few years of being passé, it seems that fur is not only back, but the big selling point for the fashion industries’ fall collection this year. Three of the nearly extinct antelopes to make one beautiful shawl for a woman with more money than conscience – going for a bargain at US$ 3,000 or for the higher end of the market – around US$20,000 a pop.
T
he socialites of New York started wearing shatoosh shawls when PETA activists were throwing paint on ladies in fur coats. In the dead animal department, a woolen shawl after all, is a bit more discreet than a mink coat.
But ladies beware – you may think you’re getting a bargain when you find one of these being offered to you by an Indian dealer – but you may well be caught by customs on the way back. And then you’re looking at not only losing the shawl, but paying a hefty fine and maybe doing a little spot in prison as well.
