However fine the raw cashmere, what happens to it during processing is crucial. Cashmere is collected in its three base colours - brown, grey and white and is sorted by hand to remove impurities. Samples of the raw fibre are then thoroughly checked by the in-house quality control laboratory in Hong Kong, before being shipped in distinctive hessian-wrapped bales to Joseph Dawson*. Herein lie the skills of generations. First the fibre is treated to remove dust, then gently washed. Cashmere consists of a coarse guard hair and down which has to be separated.

When Joseph Dawson first encountered cashmere in India in the 1870s he saw this hair being laboriously removed by hand. But cashmere had caught his imagination and he set out to invent a machine which could perform the delicate separation without damaging the soft fibres. He succeeded and thus made possible the commercial production of cashmere for which, a century later, Dawson is still renowned. Only after washing and the hair has been removed, by which time it may be reduced in weight by as much as 50%, is the cashmere deemed top quality.