by Julia Lyon

At fundraisers and gallery openings and on strolls around town, New York women are bracing against the cold with pashmina. The luxurious swath of cloth now used as an oversized shawl was once a status symbol owned by a select few. Although Europeans had long been aware of the fabric (made of hairs shorn from the underbelly of Himalayan goats), most Americans only recently discovered its plush, softer-than-cashmere textures. Now bright accents of pink and baby blue pashmina are the most distinctive accessory to the affluent woman's urban uniform.

"We think it's one of those staples to your wardrobe, like the little black dress, that's not going to change or go away," says Jackie Robbins, co-owner of the Pashmina Trunk Show. Some women are buying multiple shawls, with beading, embroidery or London's latest fad: graduated color. Carrie Bradshaw sported one on HBO's "Sex and the City" and women's magazines like Redbook and InStyle have been touting the fabric as a must-have for months. Until recently, pashmina shawls cost upward of $300-$400; now they are available for less than $200.

The flipside to the costly craze is that some women wouldn't be caught dead in it. "You know how I feel about pashmina," bemoans Ingrid deGranier, co-owner of Find Outlet in New York City. But merchants are confident of the staying power of demand, and dozens of websites like Yamuna Pashmina now offer the item at increasingly low prices. "It will never be dirt cheap," says Robbins, since scarcity makes pure pashmina a luxury even in the Himalayas. And market-watchers like Lisa Merkatz of Pashmina New York foresee an increased versatility for the product. She currently offers pillow slipcovers and hats made out of pashmina.

In the mountains of Nepal and India, local weavers knead, dye and combine pashmina goat hairs (which are thinner than cashmere) with silk (often in a 70-to-30 or 80-to-20 ratio) to give the material durability and luster. (Scarves and shawls that are 100% pashmina are typically coarse and too fragile to wear, although designers like Carolina Herrera and Donatella Versace have integrated the fabric into their past collections.) A large portion of the material then passes through numerous middlemen, raising the price exorbitantly and opening the door for wide variations in quality. "There's no regulation on pashmina; there's no stamp of approval," comments Merkatz, though she and other buyers feel confident in the reliability of their product. Most websites guarantee the quality of the pashmina and do accept returns.

Today many department stores carry the fabric, and many smaller Tibetan boutiques like Sega Carpet New York sell pashmina shawls and scarves as a bread-and-butter item. Although many Tibetans commonly wear prayer shawls, the colorful wraps are specifically geared toward westerners and should not be confused with traditional clothing. Nevertheless, Save Tibet crusaders can't be unhappy to know that these merchants are profiting from the fad, even if most buyers are less interested in history than in how they look. —Julia Lyon

The latest trends in fashion start on the local level and spread across the nation—often before you can blink twice. "Suddenly in Style" profiles focus on the latest must-have pieces and how they came to be. Spotted something new recently? Contact This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .