Alpaca Information

INTRODUCTION Alpacas can been found in 25 different colours in 250 different shades. Alpacas are gentle and curious animals and form part of the camelid family. They are closely related to llamas however they don’t have the same reputation for spitting at humans. Alpacas rarely spit at humans and only do so when they feel extremely threatened or have been mis-treated. NATURAL WARMTH Alpacas have a fleece that has extremely good qualities for making extremely warm and soft clothing. This is because the food they eat keeps the micron count of their fleece low. (micron count being the size of each hair in the fleece). The lower the micron count the finer and better the fleece is. Alpaca fibre also has a hollow core which adds excellent insulative properties to the fleece.

HYPOALLERGENIC
Alpaca fibre is free from lanolin which means that it is soft on your skin and naturally hypoallergenic. It also contains a resin which means that the garments have a built in resistance to staining, wrinkling, bobbling and water. There is a high demand and limited supply of alpaca garments because alpaca products are still not highly commercially available.

GROWING POPULARITY
The alpaca industry is well established in the United States and is growing all the time in the United Kingdom. Unlike the Ostrich Farming fad the farming of alpacas looks like it has the potential to grow and create a good industry in luxury clothing and materials.

PERUVIAN ALPACAS
Although alpacas are being farmed commercially all over the world you can’t find more variety or quality than in South America especially Peru from where we source all our alpaca garments.