Alpaca clothing is fluffy soft & does not scratch, It is also resistant and odorless. The extraction and processing is extremely sustainable and environmentally friendly. Plus alpaca can do so much more...

Here is our top 10 of the best features of alpaca fibre:

1. Warming in cold & cooling in heat
2. Cuddly soft & fluffy - without scratching
3. Absolutely odourless & dirt repellent
4. Highly durable & therefore almost free of wool lumps
5. Taking care: air out your item into the fresh air, odours and wrinkles disappear immediately
6. Lightweight garment with a natural glow
7. Alpaca is almost free of wool fat and therefore suitable for allergy sufferers
8. We use alpaca fibre from fair trade retailers and local peruvian farmers
9. Alpacas graze freely & species-appropriate at over 3000 m altitude in the Peruvian Andes
10. Alpaca fibre comes naturally in more than 20 shades of colour!

Alpaca

A natural fibre with great features

For more than 4500 years the inhabitants of Peru have loved and worn garments made of alpaca. And there are many reasons for this: Alpaca is a sustainable, very soft and super-light natural fibre with great wearing features.

Clothing made of alpaca is cuddly, silky soft and has a unique glow. Alpaca keeps you perfectly warm. Due to the hollow structure of the fibre, the air trapped in the micro-chambers acts like an air conditioner - it can therefore cool down at the same time when it is warm.

Further advantage: the alpaca fibre is fine and crease-resistant. It hardly forms any wool lumps even when worn with high demands and is almost free of pilling. The alpaca fibre is antibacterial, dirt-repellent and therefore easy to take care of (simply air out your favourite item briefly after wearing it - wrinkles and odours dissolve directly into thin air!) Furthermore, alpaca is hypoallergenic, a great advantage for all those who are sensitive to wool!

Presumably the most sustainable
Natural fibre in the world

Alpacas live in manageable herds of 50 to 100 animals in the Peruvian Andes. They live outside all year round, their thick fur protecting them from temperatures as low as minus 20 degrees. Alpacas live at altitudes between 3000 and 5000 metres above sea level - remote areas that play only a minor role in the rest of agriculture. Alpacas also live in a soil-friendly way. When grazing, they only pluck off the tips of the grass, so the plant roots can remain in the soil.

Under their hooves they have a soft sole cushion. This allows them to graze even on the steepest slopes without destroying the soil. The shearing of alpacas is only done once a year - it takes only a few minutes and is carried out carefully by hand and appropriate to the species. Cleaning alpaca fibres requires much less energy and chemicals compared to other animal fibres. The colour options are huge as alpaca wool is available in over 25 natural and undyed colours ranging from white, grey, sandy brown to black. This often saves environmentally harmful dyeing processes!

Our alpacas mostly live in small family herds of 50 to 100 animals in the Peruvian Andes. There are thousands of small farmers who live from alpaca breeding, lovingly care for their animals and keep them outdoors all year round, with plenty of exercise included. The shearing traditionally takes place once a year and only takes a few minutes. Afterwards the fibres are sorted by hand according to colour and fineness. This traditional selection is a demanding craft that only few people master. Our alpaca wool is further processed in our own production facilities in Cusco, Arequipa and Lima in Peru. Here we guarantee fair wages, secure jobs and above-average social security.

Would you like to learn more? You can find more about the fair and sustainable production of the brands APU KUNTUR and KUNA on the brand pages.

No, of course we do not use the fibres of alpaca babies. Baby Alpaca is the name of one of the highest quality grades of alpaca. Baby alpaca refers to extremely fine and high-quality alpaca fibres. These are as incredibly fine as they would normally only be found in the very youngest alpacas. To belong to this fineness class, the average hair must not be thicker than 22.5 microns (also called micron). This high fineness provides many incredibly great wearing qualities - for example, the silky sheen, high durability and light feel.

Our alpaca range is particularly suitable for allergy sufferers! Alpaca wool contains hardly any wool fat - so-called lanolin. Lanolin is an animal fat that occurs in sheep‘s wool and can be irritating to the skin. However, as alpaca wool is almost completely lanolin-free, it is ideal for allergy sufferers, babies and people with sensitive skin. Our alpaca jumpers, cardigans, scarves, hats, gloves and even thermal underwear are therefore completely safe to wear.

It is very easy to care of alpaca garments.

Alpaca is dirt repellent and antibacterial this means it´s superfine structure ensures that odours are absorbed extremely slowly and ideally disappear again quickly. If you want to give your alpaca jumper freshness after wearing it, simply hang it up for airing on the balcony or in the bathroom - instead of washing it completely. After only a few hours any odours and wrinkles will disappear without trace!

The alpaca fibre is also very durable. This means it is crease-resistant and, with the right care, does not form any nodules after washing.

You should avoid heat and too much detergent when washing - they are actually the biggest enemies of alpaca wool. Since alpaca clothing can otherwise quickly lose its shape, it should be washed either by hand or in the washing machine‘s hand washing programme - and it is best to use a gentle detergent for wool.

After washing, simply pull the garment carefully into shape and leave to air dry. Do not hang it up, but simply lay it down flat, otherwise the knitwear will warp and lose its shape. Do not tumble dry, otherwise the fibre structure will shrink.

The fineness of alpaca fibre or wool is measured in „microns“. Here the diameter of the animal hair is measured. The smaller the hair, the finer and higher quality the garment feels. There are different classes of fineness, whereby we always use only the 3 finest alpaca precious hairs - i.e. Royal Alpaca, Baby Alpaca and Superfine Alpaca. The alpaca fibres we process have a fineness of 19 - 27 microns, which corresponds on average to between 0.019 - 0.027 millimetres! This wonderful fineness is one reason for the many advantages of alpaca fibre. For comparison: human hair has a thickness of 70 microns.

Presumably Alpaca is the most sustainable natural fibre in the world

QUALITY LEVEL

Royal Alpaca           19,5 Mikrometres

Baby Alpaca            22,5 Mikrometres

Superfine Alpaca    26.5 Mikrometres

Huarizo                     29 Mikrometres

Coarse                      32 Mikrometres