For all those look­ing for some­thing very spe­cial.

No woollen fi­bre is fin­er, soft­er, rar­er, and more com­fort­able on the skin than vicuña. But you have to dig deep in­to your pock­et. The mar­ket price for the finest vicuña yarn cur­rent­ly stands at up to 10'000 Swiss Francs per kilo­gram.

Vicuña comes from the an­i­mal of the same name, which be­longs to the camel fam­i­ly. Vicuñas pre­dom­i­nant­ly live in the An­des at an al­ti­tude of up to 5,000 me­tres. While the cash­mere goats can be combed once a year, the com­plex shear­ing process of the wild vicuñas can on­ly take place every two years. A sin­gle vicuñas on­ly yields 150 grams of the valu­able fi­bre, where­as the re­ject is al­so rel­a­tive­ly high. Vicuña wool, with its 10 to 13 mi­crons (1 mi­cron = 1/1000 mil­lime­tre) dis­plays the high­est de­gree of fine­ness among the pre­cious wool va­ri­eties. Max­i­mum wear­ing com­fort, ex­cel­lent ther­mal reg­u­la­tion, and the ex­treme­ly low wrin­kle ten­den­cy em­pha­sise its lux­u­ry char­ac­ter.

Vicuñas be­long to the pro­tect­ed species un­der the Wash­ing­ton Con­ven­tion on Species of Wild Fau­na and Flo­ra since the mid-1970s. Trade is sub­ject to strict reg­u­la­tions.