Following on from a piece I wrote this week about Keep the Fleece I wanted to talk some more about Peruvian alpaca fleece.
Exports of alpaca fiber from Peru have nearly doubled to more than $43 million in the last four years, as models strut catwalks from Beijing to New York wearing alpaca garments of ever shape and size.

New York-based designer Rachel Comey loves the feel of alpaca and its more exotic cousins the vicuna and guanaco, known collectively as camelids.

Vicuna is the costliest, trimmed once every two years from the rarest of the three breeds, which roams the plateaued border region between Bolivia and Peru. A yard of the fabric sells for at least $3,000, while a basic stole starts at $950.

A similar PEruvian stole made of alpaca — which is farm-raised and makes up 99 percent of camelid exports — sells for about $47, while llama fleece is rarely commercially sold.

Peruvian producers are repositioning alpaca as a sexier luxury thread, spun into casual clothes and evening wear to appeal to young professionals with the disposable income for luxury goods. Laird Borelli, a senior features editor at Style.com. says that demand is in part assisted by the popularity of alpaca with environmentally conscious designers who want the softness of fur without the guilt.

“If you have a fabric that can get as close to fur as that, it’s an amazing thing,”

said New York designer Daryl Kerrigan, who has used alpaca to make coats.

Lima, Peru-based designer Jose Miguel Valdivia said

".......designers and textile producers are finding ways to re-create Incan precision on a larger scale and now use the fleece to weave softer fabrics that remind some of the world’s finest furs."

Peru’s government is also boosting efforts to promote the fibers, sending local designers to Europe to lobby the movers and shakers in the world of fashion.

Andean breeders in still-poor parts of rural Peru are seeing an income boost, providing a steady supply of top-grade fleece.

Breeders and textile companies are trying to improve their techniques for separating coarser fibers, shorn from alpacas’ necks and hoof-areas, from longer, more delicate flank hair. They’re looking for a scientific way to boost fleece quality, too.

Some years ago Michell & CIA S.A. — the world’s largest alpaca fleece producer — opened a breeding center in Peru’s southern Puno province to isolate traits responsible for finer fleece. Now its scientists breed alpaca and teach their methods to small farmers.

The idea is simple: The finer the fleece, the lighter, more sought-after and expensive it is.

And as an alpaca breeder here in North America all we have to add to that is the more weight of fine fleece per animal the better.