The principal aspects of the shawl are its distinctive Kashmiri weaving technique and fine wool. However, the Kashmir shawl's definition has varied in time and place, depending on various factors such as the material used and its cost, the method of construction, the intended use, and the wearer's status.
The definition needs to be clarified through fakery and imitation. Scholars, vendors, and journalists have sometimes mistakenly used the words cashmere and pashmina synonymously, or assumed they are the same because they derive from the same animal. In reality, pashmina is a particularly fine form of cashmere, so all pashmina is cashmere, but not all cashmere is pashmina. In the late 19th century AD, weavers who had migrated to Punjab set up an imitation industry, applying the Kashmiri technique to Merino wool. The resulting shawls were called raffal, and have been classified by some as a species of Kashmir shawls, though the thicker wool means that they lack the distinctive lightness characteristic of the traditional Kashmir shawl. More recently, in the late 1990s, western European and American sellers adopted the more exotic word pashmina to sell plain-weave shawls made from generic cashmere. As a result, the associations with pashmina went from exclusive high fashion to middle-class popularity in 2000.
As the fineness of a shawl in India was traditionally seen as a mark of nobility, they were historically reserved for members of the Mughal aristocracy. In the mid-eighteenth century, they became popular after their use by Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and Empress Joséphine of France. In Mughal times, they became known as "ring shawls", for being extremely light, and fine enough that a one-meter by two-meter shawl could be pulled whole through a finger ring. They remain known this way today. They today serve as status symbols, valued on average between USD $2,000 and $3,000, but for up to $15,000.
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