Why Australasian possum beats cashmere

In 1990, an exotic Swiss-Canadian teenager of purportedly Habsburgian lineage descended on Cambridge, England in a cloud of cashmere. His wardrobe was unfeasibly organized, shelf after shelf of cashmere arrayed in all the hues of the rainbow. We regarded him as a thing of wonder. In those days most of us British undergraduates were deeply unsophisticated, many of us impoverished. We were just about graduating from high-street polyester to Scottish lambswool. Cashmere was unheard of.

Life moves on. Who today hasn’t indulged in a spot of cashmere? My wife is addicted to the stuff – jumpers, cardigans, polo necks, gloves, scarves – good God, the scarves. These days cashmere is everywhere. Even Uniqlo regularly knocks it out at fairly low prices. Cashmere is nice, sure, but, as designer Nicky Haslam might put it, it’s common.

So now, after years of playing second fiddle to Mrs. Marozzi, sartorially speaking, I may just have trumped my habibti, for I have discovered something that blows cashmere out of the water: possum fur. If you know, you know. But for those who don’t, read on and thank me later.

Possum fur is a hollow fiber, meaning that it can trap and store your body warmth. It’s reportedly the third-warmest fur in the world, behind only that of the polar bear and the Arctic fox.

Mix it with merino, and often silk, and suddenly you have a heavenly natural yarn that is unfeasibly light, surprisingly strong, low on pilling, pleasantly fluffy and absurdly warm. I have just tested my latest acquisition, a charcoal zipped cardigan, at 20 degrees near the Ukrainian front line around Zaporizhzhia, and it was simply superb.

But isn’t fur cruel and beastly? Not when it comes to possums, say New Zealanders, who have been overrun by this invasive critter from Australia. As of 2009, there were 30 million of them in the country, and no one appears to know how many there are today. What is understood is that possums are highly effective vectors of bovine tuberculosis and a major agricultural menace. “Possums are a pest in New Zealand,” according to Possum Boutique in Wellington, admittedly not an entirely objective source. “Endangering wildlife and much more, millions of possums eat their way through thousands of tons of native forest every night, killing millions of native birds a year, also eating the eggs of the young. Help preserve our native fauna and flora while enjoying these beautiful garments.” The New York Times might like to subject Possum Boutique to more rigorous levels of fact-checking, but the point is that you can rock the animal’s fur without feeling unduly guilty. Indeed, you are doing your bit for the environment.

Any downsides? Well, New Zealand is the great fons et origo of possum for menswear and womenswear and some of the designs are, how shall we put this nicely, a little dated, occasionally weird. But if you go for a straightforward crew, zip or V-neck, you can’t go wrong. Two of my three possum pullovers are from Noble Wilde, which seems to be one of the better brands available in Britain. And the prices? Certainly not cheap, but shop around and you may find some bargains in the sales.

But be warned. Once you’ve taken the possum plunge, there’s no going back. Cashmere is over.

This article was originally published in The Spectator’s May 2025 World edition.