Most dog sweaters are made from acrylic, or from sheep's wool. We knit ours in baby alpaca. The difference is not a marketing line — it is the reason the piece feels the way it does against the dog, and the reason it lasts long enough to be passed on. Here is what the fibre actually does.
What baby alpaca is
Baby alpaca does not come from baby animals. The name refers to the fineness of the fibre — the softest grade taken from the fleece, measuring around 20 to 22.5 microns. The finer the fibre, the softer it feels and the less it prickles. Ours is sourced and spun in Peru, from alpacas raised in the high Andes, where the altitude and climate produce a fleece that cannot be replicated in a warmer place.
Warmer than wool, and lighter
Alpaca fibre is hollow at its core. That hollow structure traps warm air, which is why alpaca insulates noticeably better than sheep's wool of the same weight — by most accounts several times warmer — while staying lighter on the body. For a dog, that matters: warmth without the heaviness of a thick wool coat, so the dog can move freely rather than being weighed down by what is meant to keep it warm.
Gentle on sensitive skin
Sheep's wool is high in lanolin, the greasy coating that causes much of the itch and irritation people associate with wool. Alpaca is very low in lanolin — virtually free of it — and its fibres are smoother, with flatter scales than wool's barbed ones. The result is a knit that sits gently against the skin rather than scratching it, which is exactly what you want against a dog's belly and chest, where the coat is thinnest and the skin most easily irritated.
It also means alpaca holds fewer of the dust and environmental allergens that cling to lanolin-rich wool — a quieter fibre, in every sense, for a dog who lives close to you.
It improves with age
A baby alpaca piece does not wear out the way an acrylic one pills and flattens. Cared for properly — hand-washed cold, laid flat to dry — the fibre softens with each wash rather than degrading. It is a garment built for years, not seasons. This is the whole logic of the way we make things: pieces worth keeping, and eventually worth handing on.
How we knit it
Every sweater is hand-knit, needle by needle, by women in Huancayo, in the central highlands of Peru. The fibre is Alpaca Mark certified, the dyes are azo-free, and the finished pieces are shipped from France. Nothing about it is fast, and that is the point.
If you would like to feel the difference yourself, our knitwear collection is the place to start.