It appears that Shahtoosh aficionados will have to find comfort in the roughness of the Pashmina. The last decade has seen a dramatic rise in the popularity of the shahtoosh with the high fliers of St. Moritz and Klosters. However, examples of its popularity with the rich and famous can be found much earlier than that.

Such as the story of Emperor Napoleon presenting Josephine with one, whereupon she immediately ordered 400 more!! The recent surge has in fact been traced back to amongst other things the clampdown on fur. The shahtoosh became the substitute status symbol for the rich and famous. However, almost as dramatic as its recent popularity is the sharp crackdown (particularly since 1999) by wildlife departments in the United States and other signatories to the 1975 UN Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), which declared the Tibetan antelope (Chiru) an endangered species.

The few Chiru Antelope that remain will soon end up like this.

The summer of 1999 saw over a hundred summons from a New Jersey Court go out to some of the top names in New York's social calendar. Other incidents of penalties on shahtoosh handling and trading reflect a hardening attitude by the authorities - good news at last for the few Tibetan antelope left alive!!

The Indian Wildlife authorities have also been on the offensive of late and recently the Chinese Wildlife Department publicly torched a pile of Chiru pelts. Popular in the East for many centuries, shahtoosh, a Persian word, translates as 'king of wool' and is as luxurious as it gets for woollies!!

Indescribably soft, light and warm the gory origins of the toosh (as it also called) were, until recently, shrouded in mystery. The most common myth (and one that was conveniently perpetuated) being that it was made from the fine shed 'beard' hair of the ibex. The shahtoosh is in fact made from the fur (not the shed beard hair) of the endangered Tibetan antelope, and no (!) this does not involve harmless and painstaking gathering of hair shed seasonally by living animals.

Environmental crusader Dr. George Schaller, a highly regarded wildlife scientist, has established that the animals have been killed in their thousands for their fur. It takes 3 to 4 antelope skins to make an average sized shahtoosh stole. Recent estimates show the number of Chiru is down from well over a million to less than 75,000 in a frighteningly short span of time. And the massacre is continuing. As awareness of this spreads, one can only hope that the toosh will become as unsavoury an accessory as fur.

Kashmir, in India, has traditionally been the largest producer of shahtoosh. This continues till the present with most of the trade remaining in the hands of the same old clique but with complicated political ramifications given the civil unrest in the area. Officials are concerned that part of the shahtoosh earnings may be ending up on the wrong side of the divide, which may be one of the factors contributing to stricter application of the ban.

An additional complication in this complicated mesh is that Indian tiger bones (in great demand in China) are often bartered for antelope skins from Chinese occupied Tibet. The increasing demand in the West for shahtooshes is thereby putting two endangered species at increasing risk. As Dr. Schaller points out, this is an example of some fashion item coveted by the rich killing off a species in a remote area that they've never heard of (Valentino the famous designer apparently has over 200 in his collection. Only some A-List socialites in the West match this).

Unless there is a considerable drop in demand there is little hope for the Tibetan antelope. Shawl sellers in India and Pakistan - major suppliers - confirm that most of the demand for shahtoosh comes from foreigners, some of whom may well be aware that it is a banned item but are unable to resist the lower local prices.

Shahtooshes sell for between $2000 and $3000 but the embroidered variety can cost as much as $15000. In India and Pakistan, starting prices can be as low as $700. So before you set off on your annual holiday and decide that your shahtoosh is what may have tongues wagging at those social dinners keep in mind that the shahtoosh features on the banned list of most countries and anyone caught with one is liable to have it confiscated and a possible fine to boot!!

It may be the ultimate in luxury - so soft that it passes easily through a finger ring (Chiru hair is 5-7 times thinner than human hair) - so warm that you need little else as a covering. But like it or not, it is a banned item and to flaunt it in public is in very poor taste and is a vulgar display of extravagance and excess.

It also shows a flagrant disregard for the law and the environment that we inhabit not alone but along with millions of other living species. If you must wear a shawl, go for the environmentally friendly (and completely legal) alternative - the Pashmina.