It’s been a while.
This has been a year of travel and change for me and it’s taken me all this time to carve out some time to come back to what I love, which is writing, talking, and showing alpacas. I can’t promise I’ll be blogging as regularly as previously but when I run across something that gets me excited, I’ll be back here at the keyboard – and hoping you will all still find things here that make you feel the same.
Four Pocket Cardi at Gap.com (35% alpaca , $54.50)
I’ve been doing quite a bit of shoptherapy this year. I won’t go into why but needless to say, it’s not my norm. Mall is a four letter word to me and online shopping is a wonderful convenience but never a drug. But something caught my eye when I got my last Land’s End catalog – they actually offered a sweater line called “Lightheart” that was made with part alpaca.
Alpaca Blend Cardigan at JJill.com (alpaca and acrylic, $119)
Land’s End a.k.a. Sears - big retail. So when I saw alpaca blend sweaters at both the Gap and J.Jill , I couldn’t help but think – alpaca is going mainstream. That’s both good and bad : good because it may introduce the unique and luxury qualities of alpaca to many more people, bad because the pricing reflected does not promote that luxury niche. Alpaca composes a relatively small percentage in each of the sweaters offered, offset with cheaper fibers. It’s unknown what grade was used and in some cases, what that percentage is.
Still, I think it’s pretty amazing to see even a limited number of sweater offerings at such big names. Because those big names mean big volume and inventory. Now that I’ve seen these pop up without even looking, I bet with a little more searching and googling, I will find alpaca inserted into more collections everywhere, and perhaps (hopefully) into those high end designer offerings that will showcase the handle and draping qualities that distinguish alpaca fiber as haute couture suitable.
