What is a cashmere wool?

When browsing up CNN today, I stumbled on a topic about the increasing price of the cashmere wool. This made me formulate a question what is cashmere wool, where it come from, and why is it becoming expensive these days. So we begin tackling the first question we have here and well try to make a series of questions to be answered for just this topic.

What is a cashmere wool?

To answer this question we should first try to answer what is a cashmere? According to wikipedia, cashmere is a special breed of goat that produces a cashmere wool is grown in many countries particularly China. Today, cashmere is being bred anywhere for the purpose of culturing of the wool. Cashmere wool then is the fleece that these breed of goats produce and later processed to be used as apparels and other garments.

Here are the Characteristics of cashmere I grabbed from Wikepedia:

Cashmere is characterized by its soft fibers. It is noted as providing a natural light-weight insulation without bulk. Fibers are highly adaptable and are easily spun into fine or thick yarns, and light to heavy-weight fabrics. The original undyed or natural colors of cashmere wool are various shades of grey, brown and white.
In the United States, under the U.S. Wool Products Labeling Act of 1939, as amended, (U.S.C. 15 Section 68b(a)(6)), a textile product may not be labeled as containing cashmere if:

1. such wool product is not the fine (dehaired) undercoat fibers produced by a cashmere goat (Capra hircus laniger);

2. the average diameter of the fiber of such wool product exceeds 19 microns; or

3. such wool product contains more than 3 percent (by weight) of cashmere fibers with average diameters that exceed 30 microns.

The average fiber diameter may be subject to a coefficient of variation around the mean that shall not exceed 24 percent.