Wild Guanaco (15μm)

An especially rare and exquisite fiber harvested by hand from the downy undercoat of wild guanaco. Guanaco are the ancestors of domesticated llama, and they still thrive in the high deserts and altiplano of the Andes mountains. They have an extremely warm and soft down coat that helps them survive cold nights in the mountains—at 15μm, guanaco has a similar handle (feel) to pashmina or vicuña. Guanaco fiber is still harvested according to the age-old chaccu tradition: once a year, Indigenous villages build temporary paddocks out of nets, drive the local guanaco into them, shear them, and then release them back into the wild. Our guanaco combed top is the highest quality fiber intended for the Italian fashion market. It naturally has a beautiful creamy latte color, in contrast to the darker cinnamon of vicuña. It has an average staple length of between 1” and 1.5”, and will produce buttery-soft yarn. An excellent gift for fiber artists when only the best will do.

Product of Argentina. Imported by Shepherd Textiles LLC under license by the USFWS. Fully traceable through CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) to healthy wild populations listed in Appendix II of the treaty.