Glossary of Craft

22-Momme

/moe-me/

Silk weight

Momme (mm) is the unit of weight for silk fabric — grams per 100 yards of fabric at a standard width. A higher momme means more silk threads per unit area: denser, heavier, more durable, and more luminous. Consumer bedding typically runs 12–19 momme. At 22 momme, the weave is tight enough to resist pilling and snag, drapes with real body, and will outlast lighter silks by years.

For context: 19mm feels like good-quality silk. 22mm is the threshold used by premium hospitality brands (Mandarin Oriental, Aman). 25mm+ enters bespoke suiting territory. Aravat uses 22mm as a minimum — it is the right balance between drape and durability for bedding and apparel.

Changthangi

/chahng-tah-ngee/

Pashmina breed

Changthangi (also Changra) is the specific breed of mountain goat native to the Changthang plateau of Ladakh and Tibet, at elevations above 14,000 feet. The extreme cold causes these goats to develop an undercoat of fine, hollow-core fibres — what we call pashm — as insulation. When spring arrives, the goats naturally shed this undercoat, which herders hand-comb (not shear) to collect the raw fibre.

Fibre diameter is the defining quality metric: Changthangi pashm runs 12–15 microns. Human hair averages 70 microns. Cashmere from other goat breeds (primarily Chinese Inner Mongolia) runs 15–19 microns — noticeably coarser. The sub-14 micron fineness of the best Changthangi fibres is why genuine Kashmiri pashmina passes the ring test: a full-size shawl, folded, passes through a finger ring without snagging.

GI — Geographical Indication

Legal provenance mark

A Geographical Indication (GI) is an intellectual property right granted under the TRIPS Agreement (WTO) and, in India, under the Geographical Indications of Goods Act, 1999. It certifies that a product originates in a specific geographic region where a given quality, reputation, or characteristic is essentially attributable to that origin. Once granted, only producers from that region may legally use the GI tag.

Kashmiri Pashmina holds GI tag number 177 (granted 2008). Karnataka Silk (Mysore Silk) holds GI tag number 2. These are not marketing claims — they are legal designations. A product labelled "Pashmina" that does not carry the GI certification or cannot trace its fibre to Changthangi goats in Ladakh/Kashmir is, strictly speaking, mislabelled. Aravat sources only GI-certified material.

Mulberry Silk

Silk type

All silk comes from silkworm cocoons, but the species and diet matter enormously. Bombyx mori silkworms fed exclusively on white mulberry (Morus alba) leaves produce the finest, most uniform filament — called Mulberry Silk. The filament from a single cocoon can run 600–900 metres without a break and measures 10–13 microns in diameter.

Wild silks (Tussar, Eri, Muga) have coarser, irregular filaments and a natural gold or off-white colour that cannot be bleached without damage. Mulberry silk's near-circular cross-section is what creates the prism-like light diffraction — the characteristic lustre that no synthetic can replicate. Karnataka (Mysore district) produces India's finest Mulberry Silk, accounting for roughly 70% of the country's raw silk output.

Ring Test

Quality verification

A traditional quality test for Kashmiri pashmina: a full-size shawl (approximately 200cm × 70cm), folded lengthwise, is passed through a standard finger ring (inner diameter ~18mm). Genuine fine pashmina — woven from 12–15 micron pashm fibres — passes through without snagging. Coarser wool or blended fabric bunches and catches.

The test is not definitive — thread count, weave structure, and finishing also affect the result — but it remains a reliable first-pass indicator in the absence of laboratory testing. At Aravat, all pashmina is woven at a thread count that passes the ring test as a baseline requirement. Laboratory fibre-diameter testing (IWTO standards) is the industry gold standard.