Cashmere production area is mainly in the Himalayan region throughout the first part of the 19th century, extending east to China and west to Iran. But because of political and geographical obstacals, western clothiers never saw the animals that produced the fiber; they bought cashmere in bulk, primarily from India, China, Iran and Afghanistan. China now produce 70% cashmere in the world now in which cashmere material from Inner Mongolia, Qinghai, Ningxia is the best and they are also the material production area of Consinee Group.

At the same time, both Australia and the American Southwest were being settled by a tremendous influx of immigrants from Europe. These peoples brought as much as they could from the "old country" and this included the domestic goat, known for its durability during long sea voyages, and as a provider of milk and meat. Over the years in Australia, farms failed and many goats escaped, resulting in flocks of wild, or feral, goats in the vast interior "Outback". In America, especially in the Texas "outback", huge tracts of arid lands were dedicated to running what is called a "Spanish" goat because nothing else would thrive. In neither environment were these goats tame. They ran wild most of the year and were rounded up annually to harvest the young animals for the meat market. It was the Australians who first noticed that natural selection had produced a hardy, robust and wily animal, some of which had a luxurious, downy undercoat to protect them from the weather. In the late 1970's, the Aussies began selecting those fiber bearing animals and selectively developing them to establish a new industry.