Justin Marozzi has narrated this article for you to listen to.
In 1990, an exotic Swiss-Canadian teenager of purportedly Habsburgian lineage descended on Cambridge in a cloud of cashmere. His wardrobe was unfeasibly organised, shelf after shelf of cashmere arrayed in all the hues of the rainbow. We regarded him as a thing of wonder. In those days most of us British undergraduates were deeply unsophisticated, many of us impoverished. We were just about graduating from high-street polyester to Scottish lambswool. Cashmere was unheard of.
Life moves on, and who today hasn’t indulged in a spot of cashmere? My wife is addicted to the stuff – jumpers, cardigans, polo necks, gloves, scarves – good God, the scarves. These days cashmere is everywhere. Even Uniqlo regularly knocks it out at sub-£100 prices. Cashmere is nice, sure, but, as Nicky Haslam might put it, it’s common.
So now, after years of playing second fiddle to Mrs Marozzi, sartorially speaking, I may just have trumped my habibti, for I have discovered something that blows cashmere out of the water – possum fur. If you know, you know. But for those who don’t, read on and thank me later.
Possum fur is a hollow fibre, meaning that it can trap and store your body warmth. It’s reportedly the third warmest fur in the world, behind only the polar bear and Arctic fox.
Mix it with merino, and often silk, and suddenly you have a heavenly natural yarn that is unfeasibly light, surprisingly strong, low on pilling, pleasantly fluffy and absurdly warm. I have just tested my latest acquisition, a charcoal zipped cardigan, at -7°C close to the Ukrainian front line around Zaporizhzhia, and it was simply superb.
But isn’t fur cruel and beastly? Not when it comes to possums, say New Zealanders, who have been overrun by this invasive critter from Australia. As of 2009, there were 30 million of them in the country, and no one appears to know how many there are today. What is understood is that possums are highly effective vectors of bovine TB and a major agricultural menace.
‘Possums are a pest in New Zealand,’ says Possum Boutique in Wellington, admittedly not an entirely objective source. ‘Endangering wildlife and much more, millions of possums eat their way through thousands of tons of native forest every night, killing millions of native birds a year, also eating the eggs of the young. Help preserve our native fauna and flora while enjoying these beautiful garments.’ BBC Verify might like to subject Possum Boutique to more rigorous levels of fact-checking, but the point is that you can rock your possum without feeling unduly guilty. Indeed, you are doing your bit for the environment.
Any downsides? Well, New Zealand is the great fons et origo of possum for menswear and womenswear and some of the designs are, how shall we put this nicely, a little dated, occasionally weird. But if you go for a straightforward crew, zip or V-neck, you can’t go wrong. Two of my three possum pullovers are from Noble Wilde, which seems to be one of the better brands available in Britain. And the prices? Certainly not cheap, but shop around and you may find some bargains in the sales.
But be warned. Once you’ve taken the possum plunge, there’s no going back. Cashmere is over.
Comments
Comment section temporarily unavailable for maintenance.