The Big "Mongolian" Cashmere Scam

You think you're sipping on Veuve, when you're actually drinking André.

Imagine that you’re buying champagne to celebrate an important milestone. You want to make your loved ones feel special by getting a nice bottle, and you find a surprisingly affordable one. You feel super smart and proud of finding a deal.

That night you pop it, and pour it into coups for everyone. But when you all toast and they take a sip, you see the looks on their faces. Turns out that you’ve actually bought crappy, overly sweet, sparkling white wine from an industrial American producer. And the moment is ruined.

The truth is in the details.

Legally, this isn’t allowed to happen. Only high quality sparkling wine made with certain processes in the Champagne region of France can be called champagne. That protects both French producers and international consumers from getting ripped off.

But in the fashion world, every brand is somehow selling the finest Mongolian cashmere, from the $20 Amazon dupes to the $1,600 Loro Piana turtleneck.

Well, I hate to break it to you, but almost every single fashion company is actually just selling Chinese cashmere.

It’s not pure Mongolian cashmere. Nor is it sustainable or ethical. And if it’s less than $100, it’s not good quality, either.

In fact, China, its unethical factories, and its fast-fashion brands deliberately obscure the origin of their cashmere sweaters. This fluffy marketing lie contributes to the desertification of Mongolia, chips away at traditional nomadic culture, and oppresses ethnic Mongols within China’s borders.

The World’s Finest Cashmere

Mongolia, a small democratic country sandwiched between two repressive world powers – Russia and China – should by all rights be the cashmere powerhouse. Traditional nomadic herders who make a living off of cashmere goats, cattle, yak, sheep and camels, about 40% of Mongolia’s population, are keeping Mongolia’s traditions alive.

But approximately 40% of the world’s raw cashmere comes from Mongolia, while almost all the rest comes from China.

Instead, it’s the environmentally destructive mining industry – copper and gold – that sadly dominates Mongolia’s economy, accounting for 80% of Mongolia’s exports by value and more than 20% of its GDP.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Once upon a time, Soviet Mongolian factories bought raw cashmere that had been hand-combed by the women of nomadic herding families, spun it into fiber and knitted that into textiles. Now, most of those factories sit idle.

Instead, more than 90% of the raw cashmere fiber that is harvested in Mongolia is bought and immediately taken over the border into China, where it’s mixed with lower quality cashmere, made into a textile, and then made into fast fashion products, which are marketed in the U.S. and Europe as “Mongolian” cashmere.

How do these Chinese firms and international fashion brands get away with this? Well, there’s a province in China called Inner Mongolia. So fashion brands can assert that their cashmere, which is a mix of true Mongolian and Chinese cashmere, is pretty much all Mongolian… of a sort.

Chinese authorities have cracked down on and killed ethnic Mongols in this region for decades, smothering their language and culture. Recently, the Chinese government has forcibly removed Mongol herders from the arid grasslands to give the land to ethnic Han Chinese and allow resource extraction and development.

China’s frenzied “democratization” of cashmere – from rarefied and special to an everyday textile – has incentivized nomads to expand their goat herds beyond what is sustainable. These large herds overgraze the steppe, tear up the grass by the roots and destroy it with their sharp hooves.

As far back as 2006, there were warnings that the Chinese cashmere boom was turning the famed Mongolian steppe into a dust bowl. And it’s only gotten worse – an estimated 70% of the rangeland in Mongolia is now facing desertification.

On top of that, Chinese cashmere is inferior to true Mongolian cashmere.

“All of the fiber that we purchase, and any harvest that we've ever seen, has always been hand combed,” says Bill Infante, co-founder with his wife Betina of Hangai Mountain Textiles. “By contrast, it appears that in China they are not practicing the same kind of cruelty-free mechanisms to harvest and they are in some instances shearing goats.”

That mechanized and “efficient” shearing can lead to more stress and injury for the goats, and lower quality fiber.

How to Save True Mongolian Cashmere

Betina and Bill lived in Mongolia for ten years, where he worked for the development organization Asia Foundation, and she founded a PR firm. Their kids spent four years of their childhood riding horses on the plains with the herders.

The Infantes care deeply about the fate of Mongolian herders and their culture, and see sustainably obtained luxury animal fibers as key to preserving Mongolia’s culture and land. Their brand is named Hangai after the mountain range in central Mongolia where the highest quality animal fibers come from.

The Infantes would like to see two things happen so that Mongolia and its traditional herders get their fair due. First, Mongolian cashmere should receive a designation of origin, where only cashmere that is raised, harvested, spun and woven in the country of Mongolia could be labeled Mongolian cashmere.

Second, Mongolia should get preferential trade treatment from the U.S., a bipartisan cause, given the concern about Russia and China’s growing economic power.

In November of 2023, the “Mongolia Third Neighbor Trade Act” was introduced to the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives which would lift duties from Mongolian textiles. This would cut China as a middleman out of the supply chain, cut costs for American consumers, and support Mongolia’s rural herders.

There haven’t been updates on either of these efforts, unfortunately. “We recently spoke to a colleague in the textile industry about Mongolia’s cashmere processing and competitiveness prospects with China and others in Asia. He unfortunately was not optimistic and was beginning to move his production elsewhere, mostly due to increasing price of raw materials and processing in Mongolia,” Betina wrote to me in an email update this week. But they are staying the course. “We do not feel the pressure others are feeling because we are not mass producing, and have positioned Hangai as a luxury item with purpose.”

So for now, you just have to be aware of what you’re getting.

If you’re on an André budget, or you prefer cava and prosecco to champagne that’s fine! You do you. As long as you’re aware that you’re not really getting the full cashmere experience. And as long as you own it. Don’t pour me a glass of Two Buck Chuck and tell me it’s from the storied vineyards of France.

So, what cashmere should you buy?

Okay, so let’s say you do want the full, not-fake, Mongolian cashmere experience. I’m with you, babe. Let’s fucking go.

First, try to buy a vintage (pre-2000s) cashmere sweater from your local high-end vintage fashion store, which will be of a much higher quality for a good price.

The asymmetric merino wool sweater by Cos.

If you want something soft and high performance to wear every day that isn’t a greenwash-y Quince Mongolian cashmere knock-off, get yourself some merino wool –– merino wool sweaters, beanies, scarves, gloves, and base layers all rock. I like Icebreaker, Reformation, and Cos.

Alpaca wool long sleeve in gray by Arms of Andes

Or alpaca! It’s so soft and sustainably raised in Peru by indigenous herders. It’s the cashmere of the Andes. I like Arms of Andes for everyday wear, like the alpaca wool long sleeve and the alpaca wool v-neck t-shirt.

The Kulan sweater in white from Oyuna.

If you’re a Veuve in Vail type of person, consider buying a pure Mongolian sweater from Oyuna, designed in London by a woman with Mongolian heritage and made in Mongolia. Get your next beanie, scarf, robe, poncho, or throw blanket from Hangai Mountain Textiles, which are also completely made of Mongolian fiber in Mongolia.

The wool yak dress in black from Filippa K

If this makes you think that cashmere is so over, and you’re looking for the next big thing, consider yak! It’s a more sustainable fiber from Mongolia, and equally soft and luxurious. The Infantes, who now live near Aspen, swear by it, and I adore my old Nicholas K. pure undyed yak sweater dress. You can find yak options at Filippa K., Lemaire, Isabel Benenato, Norlha, and Tengri.

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