Vicuña
The vicuña comes from a small deer-like animal (a camelid really) that lives wild in the high Andes. The wool of the vicuña was used by the ancient Inca to weave the garments of their kings, who favoured it for the lightness and warmth. At the time of the Incas, as it is today. After being reduced almost to extinction in the sixties and early seventies, the population has now increased in recent years and the commerce of vicuña wool obtained by careful shearing has been allowed again starting in the early nineties. The vicuña develops two different layers of wool: one closer to the skin, the fluff, with exceptional thermoregulatory activity, and the other external with longer and silky fibers, for protection against atmospheric agents. The vicuña fiber has a diameter of 12 μm (there are 1.000 μm in a millimeter) and thus is thinner than the best cashmere at 15 μm. The adult animal produces only a very small amount of wool: about 150 grams of fiber every two years. For comparison a Merino sheep yields 3.000-6.000 grams of wool yearly, and the Cashmere goat around 500 grams. To get the quantity of vicuña wool we put in one of our mattresses you need to shear 14 adult animals. The total annual world production of vicuña wool is just 12 tons, compared to 25.000 tons of cashmere: the owners of these mattresses and toppers truly have something unique that will follow them for life.