Cashmere from dogs | Turning discarded dog undercoat into luxury yarn | Sebastian Salvat, Chiora

Every spring, a double-coated dog sheds enough undercoat to knit a jumper. Most of it goes in the bin, or worse, on the garden fence for the birds, where flea treatment residue can kill hatchlings. Sebastian Salvat wants a better option.Sebastian is a fashion marketing student at London College of Fashion and the founder of Chiora, a project turning brushed-out dog undercoat into a cashmere-like yarn. He's been working in dog rescue since he was sixteen, lives with two rescues from Romania (Chai and Ora, who the brand is named after), and is backed by LCF's startup programme. The British Dog Wool Association was doing something similar for soldiers in hospitals over a hundred years ago. So the idea isn't new. The question is whether it should exist now.We get into the ethics of building a luxury material from a living animal, the economics that keep the model honest, and what Sebastian is doing differently this time around. If you live with a double-coated dog, pause before you throw the brush-outs away. Send your dog's brushed-out undercoat to Chiora [email protected] | chiora.org