Peru fuels boom in soft and luxurious fashions made of alpaca ...

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Peru fuels boom in soft and luxurious fashions made of alpaca,llama fleece
15 hours ago
AREQUIPA, Peru — In this Andean nation far from glamorousrunways, some of the most fashionable residents have four legs:vicunas, alpacas and llamas.
Exports of the animals' fleecy coats have nearly doubled to morethan US$43 million in the past four years, as models strut catwalksfrom Paris to New York wearing fur from the long-necked animals inthe form of pricey ponchos, pants and pea coats.
Fleece shorn from the three species - known collectively ascamelids - is "really soft and luxurious," said New York-baseddesigner Rachel Comey, who says she sold about US$200,000 worth ofalpaca knitwear last year, including hats, gloves and alpaca-linedboots.
Vicuna is the costliest, trimmed once every two years from therarest of the three breeds, which roams the plateaued border regionbetween Bolivia and Peru. About a metre of the fabric sells for atleast US$3,000, while a basic stole starts at about US$950 at thefactory store.
A similar stole made of alpaca - which is farm-raised and makes up99 per cent of camelid exports - sells for about US$47, while llamafleece is rarely commercially sold.
The warm, dyeable fibres, long used for sportswear fleece, arebeing recast as a sexier luxury thread, spun into casual clothesand evening wear to appeal to deep-pocketed young professionals.Demand is partly driven by the fleece's popularity withenvironmentally conscious designers, who want the softness of furwithout the guilt, said Laird Borelli, a senior features editor atStyle.com.
"If you have a fabric that can get as close to fur as that, it's anamazing thing," said New-York based designer Daryl Kerrigan, whohas used alpaca to make coats.
The Incas once wore alpaca, carefully breeding the doe-eyed animalsand weaving their fleece on delicate hand looms into soft cloththat local royalty draped as robes. But Spanish conquistadorsreplaced those techniques, spinning raw fibres into coarse threadwith a more mechanical wheel.
Those rougher methods ensured alpaca was considered a sportsman'stextile for much of the 20th century: warm but scratchy, it wasrelegated to rough sweaters bought in bulk by tourists, seniorcitizens and campers.
Yet designers and textile producers are finding ways to recreateIncan precision on a larger scale, and now use the fleece to weavesofter fabrics that remind some of the world's finest furs, saidLima-based designer Jose Miguel Valdivia.
Peru's government is also boosting efforts to promote the fibres,sending local designers to Europe to lobby fashionistas. Ninetravelled to Paris's famed ready-to-wear show last January onbehalf of state-run trade group PromPeru, showing alpaca-madeslacks, coats, dresses and jackets to journalists and potentialbuyers.
"I try to use what we're strong in ... (and) in Peru, what we'restrong in is alpaca, cotton and silver," said Claudia Bertolero,one of the designers who brought her alpaca trapeze dresses,fringed ponchos and vests to Paris.
Andean breeders in still-poor parts of rural Peru are seeing anincome boost, providing a steady supply of top-grade fleece.
Breeders and textile companies are trying to improve theirtechniques for separating coarser, cheaper fibres, shorn fromalpacas' necks and hoof-areas, from longer, more delicate flankhair.
They're looking for a scientific way to boost fleece quality, too.
In 1995, Michell & CIA S.A. - the world's largest alpaca fleeceproducer - opened a breeding centre in Peru's southern Punoprovince to isolate traits responsible for finer fleece. Now, itsscientists breed alpaca, teaching their methods to small farmerswho independently raise most of Peru's stock and sell the fleece tobig weavers. Michell's competitor Grupo Inca does the same.
The idea is simple: the finer the fleece, the lighter, moresought-after and expensive it is.
But rising popularity has brought a familiar problem -counterfeiting - which threatens to dissuade buyers. Peru'sgovernment has failed to regulate the fleece with quality controls,so many popular alpaca scarves, for example, are in fact made fromsynthetic fibres, said Edita Vilcapoma, a researcher with theLima-based Association of Peruvian Consumers and Users.
Still, exports are booming. About 3,800 tonnes of alpaca, vicunaand llama fleece were sold in 2006, the last year for which figureswere available - mostly to Italy, the U.K. and China, as ready-madeclothing and yarn.
The fleece still fills a tiny niche in an already-small luxuryfibre market. About 46 per cent of textiles sold worldwide lastyear were polyester, 39 per cent were cotton and two per cent wool- leaving little room for other fibres.
For now, that gives alpaca an advantage, insulating it frombig-time competition and giving smaller breeders, weavers anddesigners time to grow, said Jeffrey Silberman, chair of thetextile and marketing department at New York's Fashion Institute ofTechnology.
Back in Lima, the decision to start stitching a hometown fibre intohigh-fashion has been easy.
"It's a great romance," designer Valdivia said of his work. "Ireally think it's more like alpaca chose me."