Pashmina Bazar was founded by Mohammad Yehya Shahdad who comes from the famous Shahdad family of Kashmir. The inspiration that started Pashmina Bazar lies in the deep roots that the Shahdad family historically had with the Pashmina trade in Kashmir. Today I want to take you down the history lane and give you a glimpse of the way this trade flourished in the Shahdad household in the earlier half of the 20^th century.

The Shahdad family had a historical link with trade on the Silk Route.  The ancestors of the Shahdad family in Kashmir themselves travelled from Bukhara in Central Asia along the historical Silk Route and settled in the beautiful valley of Kashmir. After settling, the family flourished in the old city of Srinagar, and in the late 1700’s Mir Ghulam Qadir Shahdad moved permanently to live in the BulBul Lanker area of the Old city of Srinagar. For the next 150 years his descendants rose to fame and success.

Mir Mohammad Shahdad, born around mid 1800’s, the great grandson of Mir Ghulam Qadir Shahdad, had six sons. Along with his sons, Mir Ahmedullah Shahdad, Mir Ghulam Rasool Shahdad and Mir Abdul Ali Shahdad, he would travel all the way from Srinagar, Kashmir to famous Silk Route centers like Yarkand, Dushambe, Kashghar, and Leh.  They would trade with different commodities and would complete the entire journey on horse backs. The route that connected the Kashmir Valley with Tibet was notoriously harsh and only passable during a few months in the summer. So when travelling, they would come back after long trips that lasted months. This journey into the Tibetan Plateau was made to bring back the immensely valuable raw fabrics, Shahtoosh and Pashmina. These valuable raw fabrics were only produced in the Tibetan plateau. Shahtoosh came from the Chiru Antelope where as Pashmina came from Capra Hircus. Huge care was taken into making sure that the animals were not harmed in any way. In fact only the fiber that was shed naturally by the animals was used to create the Fabrics.

On their return, the Shahdads would bring back Caravan’s of horses loaded with the fabric along with an entourage of Ladakhi tradesmen who would come to trade in Srinagar and then go back. It is said that on their return, the Caravans were so long that the last horse in the chain was still trotting in Ganderbal when the leading one had already arrived in Soura, Srinagar a distance of around ten kilometers. Upon their arrival in BulBul Lanker, the raw fabrics, the horses and the Ladakhis would all be lodged in three huge separate halls in the basements of the huge mansions that the Shahdad Family owned in the old city of Srinagar.

A large group of Local Kashmiri women would eagerly await the arrival of the caravan that the Shahdads brought back from Tibet. Their role in this historical and amazing trade would begin after the caravan’s arrival. A long line of local women would be seen running through the corridors and staircases of the ancestral house of the Shahdad Family. Each women would bring a piece of Silver or Gold that it had, present it as security to Mir Ghulam Rasool Shahdad, one of the six sons of Mir Mohammad Shahdad, who would then carefully label this security deposit, put it is a safe place, and then hand over a fixed quantity of raw Pashmina and Shahtoosh to these women one by one.  Such was the immense value of the raw fabrics. This started a process when these women in their own homes would produce the thread from the raw lumps of Shahtoosh and Pashmina. After completing this process, these women would return to the Shahdad house and collect their due wages.

Once the thread was woven from the raw fabrics, the work for the Pashmina weavers started and they would then produce the masterpieces that we today call the Pashmina Shawl. Shahtoosh was banned later on and its production and weaving stopped, but the Pashmina Shawls continued to be woven in Kashmir. Once the completed shawls were created, the Shahdads would then sell these Pashmina and Shahtoosh Shawls to the British Royals and the rich businessmen visiting Kashmir along with the rich families of the old city where it was customary for women to own a Shahtoosh and Pashmina Shawl. Such was the rarity of these shawls that to this day, a traditional Kashmiri woman usually has a Shahtoosh shawl and a few Pashmina Shawls that her elders would have gifted her on her wedding day.

Well, almost half a century later, Pashmina Bazar hopes to continue in the same steps of the ancestors of our founder and present to the rest of the world, the true and authentic Pashmina Shawls and other Kashmiri masterpieces, preserving this rich history and maintaining the same traditional values when it comes to Authenticity and Originality.

Alright folks, till next time, stay tuned for more insights into the history of Pashmina and the story that relates Pashmina Bazar with this history forever.

Bye for now,

The Blog Team,

www.PashminaBazar.com

September 24, 2008 was a great day in the history of Pashmina. Today an important event marked a great leap in the reclaiming of the Pashmina by Kashmiris. I am thrilled to share this event with you and am even more confident and proud in the unique opportunity Pashmina Bazar's online presence has created for the history of Pashmina in reviving the original Pashmina Brand and being the first online Pashmina store to proudly claim to be selling Pure Pashmina Shawls ranging from around $500 to almost a thousand dollars.

"Needle Work Allover Design Dar" a gem from the Pure Pashmina Shawl Collection at Pashmina Bazar

The Central Government of India, in a great decision to prevent the sale of fake pashminas, today announced that it is going to award a patent to the Pashmina Brand recognizing the Kashmiri origin of this amazing art, permanently excluding all other variations of fake products produced elsewhere to be falsely labeled as Pashmina. Read more about how the leading Indian Newspapers are reporting this story: Indian Express , The Hindu. This is a great event recognizing the efforts of the numerous local Kashmiri artisans who have spent their generations weaving this amazing fabric. Pashmina Bazar is also proud in its humble efforts to support these Local Kashmiri artisans in their struggle and by promoting the original brand and never hesitating in sticking true to the original brand. We at Pashmina Bazar could have taken the usual journey that countless other online Pashmina stores have taken by falsely labeling lesser quality wool products as Pashmina and sell them for as little as $15 to $40, obviously these stores had tested this business philosophy for almost a decade now and had been relatively successful. But this did not scare us or made us believe that we need to do something similar in order to be successful. But we chose the path of Originality and Purity. In fact the cheapest Pure Pashmina Shawl that we offer is selling for $486 today. Obviously from a business standpoint it would have been suicide to introduce a Pure Pashmina range from $486 to $799 and expect it to be successful when at the same time other online Pashmina Stores were claiming to sell 100% Pashmina and other buzz word combinations of Pashmina for as little as $35. But as described in the core business philosophy we believe in, we realized it long time back that the only reason Pashmina is so famous is because of its time tested quality, not because of a online business selling its fake variations cheaply.

Having talked about this great news about the patent, in the other parts of the world down under, Australia and New Zealand, around September 3, 2008, under the Fair Trading Act in Auckland District Court, Australia's largest catalogue retailer, was fined $8500 for falsely selling shawls as silk blend pashminas when they were not. This came after this retailer sold over 11000 shawls falsely claiming that these were Pashmina for just $19.95. Read more at The New Zealand Herald, The National Business Review, One News, News Talk, and Radio New Zealand. We at Pashmina Bazar really feel ashamed at such practices. In fact a testament to our authenticity is the common message that all these news articles gave and that was a 100% Pashmina usually sells for over $450, which is where our price range starts for Pure Pashmina Shawls. Even though this is a great step forward in eliminating these bad business practices around the world, a lot needs to be done still to eliminate the false use of the Pashmina Brand by most online stores today.

Well we at Pashmina Bazar, will keep sticking around and never give up, for we have fans and supporters like you who support us by expressing the authenticity we promote and rejecting the false and fake variations others produce. Let us all resolve to promote the Pure Pashmina Brand and let us all show the world, the true beauty of a Pure Pashmina Shawl.

The Blog Team

www.PashminaBazar.com