For fans of The Tea-Planter’s Wife and Victoria Hislop comes a gripping story of doomed love and secrets in 1940s Kashmir.

- Lavishly illustrated, the book offers a comprehensive view of pashmina, one of the most exqusite textiles ever woven - Constructs a complete narrative of the textile, from the raw material to the finished product - Covers the history for the pashmina industry from the nomadic tribes to the fashion industry The classic Kashmir shawl is among the most exquisite textiles ever woven, the product of consummate skill and artistry applied to one of the world's most delicate fibers. This authoritative study introduces the Kashmir shawl as a cultural artifact with a known history spanning four centuries. Lavishly illustrated and accessibly written, the revised edition of this book has much to offer textile scholars, and those interested in the history of Kashmir. Contents: Preface and Acknowledgements; Maps; Introduction: A Felicitous Conjunction. PART I: THE FIBRE - Chapter 1: Pashm and Other Animal Fibres; Chapter 2: Changra and Changpa: The Goats and Their Herders - Monisha Ahmed; Chapter 3: From Changthang to Srinagar: The Pashm Trade. PART 2: THE TEXTILE - Chapter 4: Spinners, Weavers, and Needleworkers; Chapter 5: Design and Designers. PART 3: THE HISTORY - Chapter 6: Early History: Conjecture and Speculation; Chapter 7: The Mughal Period; Chapter 8: The Iran Connection: The Termeh; Chapter 9: The Business in the 19th Century. PART 4: BY LAND AND SEA - Chapter 10: The Kashmir Shawl in India; Chapter 11: The Kashmir Shawl in Iran, West Asia, and Russia; Chapter 12: Shawls in the West. PART 5: CASHMERE AND KASHMIR - Chapter 13: Beyond the Shawl: Pashmina Becomes Cashmere; Chapter 14: Meanwhile, Back in the Valley. Appendix I Update 2008-17; Appendix II Myths, Misconceptions, and Oddities; Appendix III Terminology and Glossary; Notes and References; Bibliography; Picture Credits; Index.

The authors bring fresh clarity to the many myths that have arisen around the Kashmiri shawl on the South Asian trade circuit. They also interpret most of the complexities in the Kashmiri shawl lexicon.

Richly layered and remarkably candid, this is anything but an ordinary memoir. Life-writing at its truthful and unapologetic best, here is a story of a textile historian, entrepreneur and collector with an eventful and adventurous life story. As a child in countryside England, Jenny had thought she would grow up to be a spy, but life had other plans. Brought to the world of Asian textiles, art and museums, she has over the last five decades travelled across Asia with a passion to document traditional, local, and nomadic weaves and handcrafted textiles. She lays bare her idyllic childhood in the aftermath of the Second World War; her aspirations of being in the arts and then as a researcher at the Victoria and Albert museum in London; the struggles of falling in and out of love and a broken marriage; of parenting; and her passion for Indian textiles, having established herself as one of the most successful British entrepreneurs working in India who co-founded the luxury brands shades of India and kashmir loom.

A revised and expanded edition of Monique Lévi-Strauss's classic 1987 book on French cashmere shawls with superb photographs and a wealth of archive material The delicate beauty of the cashmere shawl was first brought to Europe by the East India Companies and Napoleon's campaigns. Woven in Kashmir, its fabric was so light that, according to legend, a whole shawl could be passed through a finger ring. Exquisite and expensive, by the nineteenth century these shawls were highly sought-after in France; enterprising French manufacturers soon saw that there was a market for more accessibly priced versions and started to create their own. Here is the story of French cashmere shawls of the nineteenth century. At first, the shawl-makers strove to imitate the traditional hand-made designs using modern techniques of mass production, but then they began to explore and innovate. As weaving technology evolved, motifs grew increasingly complex, expanding from the decorative borders and extending across the whole surface of the shawl and filling it with jewel-like colors.