Our Fiber

Alpaca fiber 

High in the Peruvian Andes for over 700 years, you’ll find alpacas: beautiful, calm and intelligent domestic animals that are prized by the incas over gold for their fiber known as the "fiber of the gods." This angelic animal grows lustrous fleece softer than cashmere, and eight times stronger and warmer than sheep’s wool. Alpaca fiber is water resistant and longer in length—so it’s more durable and resistant to pilling too. And with microscopic air pockets on each hair, alpaca fiber offers exceptional thermal insulation. This means it will keep you cool during the hot summer months, and warm during the cold winters. Llamita only uses 100% baby alpaca fiber, which is the first shear of an alpaca, making it the softest and most unique.

 

Sustainably made

Unlike cotton, cashmere or sheep’s wool, which have to be washed multiple times during production, alpaca fiber does not go through a stripping process: after just one wash, you can wear alpaca fiber next to the skin. This saves millions of gallons of water worldwide. Alpaca fiber is also free from lanolin, a potential irritant found in sheep’s wool, making the alpaca fiber hypoallergenic.

 

 

 

 The Llamita community

Many farmers rely on alpaca fiber for the majority of their income and they shear their alpacas only once a year—so you can be confident that the animals that supply our fiber are treated with the utmost care and respect. We are also proud to be helping and empowering a network of artisan women in communities in the Andes, providing employment to women in an area where opportunities are rare. The artisan women we work with are all mothers who hand make each product and use knitting as supplementary income for their families.

 

 Sustainable Fashion must be the Future…

Fast fashion is putting a strain on our planet. Every year in the US, 12.8 million tons of clothing are sent to landfills. In developing countries, rivers are polluted from textile factories, dyeing their drinking waters. Worst of all, the pesticides used in conventional cotton production, are the most toxic in the world causing disease and polluting our earth.

Join the fashion revolution: Look good. Do good. Feel good.