The fibre's name reflects its early association with the Indian state of Kashmir, famous even from Roman times for its fine shawls and scarves. In the 1870s a Bradford mill owner Joseph Dawson was travelling through Kashmir when he saw peasant women laboriously separating the fine goat fibre from the coarse outer hair to make a material suitable for spinning.

In the long fierce winters, when temperatures can fall to 40°C below zero, the goats grow a downy underfleece of soft short hair beneath their thick exterior coat, it is the undercoat which is cashmere. In the summer both coats moult and nomadic farmers begin the painstaking task of combing out the precious hair.