How Handmade Down Shawls Differ from Factory-Made Items

The main advantages of handmade items:

 Handmade items are most often much warmer than factory ones.
If you compare items from the same line. Of course, a factory-made warm shawl will be warmer than a handmade gossamer shawl . But when comparing a warm shawl with a warm shawl, or a gossamer shawl with a gossamer shawl, the handmade item wins.

 A unique pattern.
You can find two handmade shawls that are similar to each other, but absolutely identical ones – never!

 A natural, eco-friendly composition.
A high content of goat down, as a rule no less than 80%, is a distinctive feature of handmade items. As the base for the down thread, craftswomen choose either cotton thread or natural silk thread. The down is spun onto such a thread and never comes off it.

 Soft, gentle, pleasant to the touch.
The craftswoman spins the down thread by hand, avoiding over-twisting. The thread is very soft and fine and obediently lies into the fabric of the item. The shawl begins to get a little fluffy already during knitting, through contact with the craftswoman's hands. To spin the yarn and then knit a shawl, a craftswoman needs a special state of mind. A piece of the craftswoman's soul and love is put into every handmade shawl. The result is a very soft, warm and fluffy shawl that will serve you reliably throughout your long life. And it will most likely become a family treasure passed from mother to daughter, as was customary in the past.

The main disadvantages of handmade items:

 They may shed down.
At first, down may stay on clothing to some degree. With constant wear, this effect quickly disappears.

The pattern of the shawl may not be as clearly visible as on a factory item.
This is because handmade items become much fluffier than their factory counterparts. Over time the layer of down becomes so thick that the pattern of the item is less visible. At the same time, the shawl only gets warmer and warmer.

The price is sometimes higher than that of similar factory items.
This is fully justified. Handwork has always been valued more than machine work. Judge for yourself: a craftswoman can spend up to 8 weeks of effort, time and skill making one down shawl, and puts a piece of her soul into each shawl. Such an item cannot be cheap by definition.

The main advantages of factory items:

A contrasting pattern.
On factory items, the clarity of the pattern is preserved for almost their entire service life. There is practically no down layer over the item, which has a favourable effect on its visual perception. And because the ornament of almost all factory items is very rich and designed by professional technologists, such an item will please the eye and bring aesthetic pleasure.

 Low price.
Factory shawls are most often cheaper than similar handmade items, because they are a mass product, and their production costs much less than one-off unique production.
They leave almost no down on clothing.
This is due to the technology of making the thread and the peculiarities of its composition. The thread is twisted by machines; it is stiffer and holds the fibres better. At first there may be slight shedding of the so-called "dead" down – small technological waste that falls out of the item and does not appear later.

The main disadvantages of factory items:

A standard pattern.
All factory shawls are the product of machines; they are all knitted to certain templates. It should be noted that these templates are designed by professionals and comply with the canons of Orenburg down shawl composition. But there is no guarantee that you will not meet someone wearing the same shawl as yours.

Composition of the items.
Almost all factory items lose out to handmade counterparts in down content. Also, factory items very often use artificial synthetic materials such as viscose and polyacrylic (PA for short) as the base. It is worth noting that expensive items may use silk thread as the base, but unfortunately the percentage of down in them usually does not exceed 60%, versus 80% in handmade shawls.

 Stiffer and coarser than handmade items.
This is because machine-spun yarn is used in making factory shawls. The tension of the thread is controlled not by the hand of a spinner but by a soulless machine. Then other machines knit the items. It is important to understand that this is not about the quality of factory shawls, only about comparing them with handmade shawls. Factory down shawls have far more aesthetics and tenderness than any other examples of industrial knitting.

Not as warm as handmade items.
Factory items are certainly warm, since they contain goat down, which gives Orenburg down shawls their legendary properties. But most often similar handmade items are much warmer than factory samples. It is all about the percentage of down in the items, the spinning of the down thread and the shawl production process.

We have tried to set out objectively the main differences, pros and cons of handmade and factory shawls. Which one to choose is up to you alone. Each has clear advantages and practically no disadvantages, since all the disadvantages listed are only relative to each other. Any Orenburg down shawl will be several orders of magnitude warmer, more natural, more eco-friendly and more beautiful than any modern industrial item made of acrylic and the like. At the heart of the Orenburg down shawl are legendary goat down, centuries-old traditions and skilled workmanship.