Global Luxury Pashmina Dialogue to cover six Indian cities

A new initiative called Global Luxury Pashmina Dialogue, spearheaded by entrepreneur-cum-pashmina artist Babar Afzal with support from several private luxury brands and the Jammu and Kashmir government, will soon start covering six Indian cities to showcase the lost sheen of the luxurious fabric and to raise funds for the pashmina weaving community of Kashmir.

Pashmina is an extremely fine wool variety harnessed from mountain goats in Kashmir’s Changthang plateau and Malra region. Pashmina goats are also found in parts of Himachal Pradesh, Nepal and northernmost areas of Pakistan.

The series of events in New Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Udaipur and Kolkata aim to revive the Rs 1,700-crore pashmina industry in India and will bring together the largest importers of pashmina — Canada, Germany, Monaco, France and the United Arab Emirates, Indian media reports quoted Afzal as saying.

Art auctions, exhibition of pashmina products, and fashion shows will be part of the dialogue that aims to go international later. Besides antique collection from the Mughal courts, two dozen pashmina artworks, each costing between Rs 20 lakh and Rs 50 lakh, will be showcased. Sozni pashmina shawls, which take around six to seven years to make and cost around Rs 70 lakh, will be exhibited as well.

Afzal quit his job in the Silicon Valley a few years back to become a shepherd in Kashmir and work for the preservation of Pashmina goats in the Himalayas.