Click to view our Accessibility Statement or contact us with accessibility-related questions
Drop Refurbished
Like-new products you can trustDrop Rewards
Get $5 for every 500 points you earn! Learn more
Drop Keyboard Club
Become a member and expand your keycap collectionCollaborate With Us
For Brands & DesignersFollow Drop
The product description didn’t imply that the wool was from Scotland.
Is there a difference between Scottish and Chinese wool?
Is there a difference in Made in U.S.A. and Made in China? If consumers are givien a choice they will choose Scottish wool, or will pay a higher price for it, so the marketing by this outfit obfuscates the source of the wool.
But in fact, there is no such thing as Scottish cashmere wool, since cashmere requires a specific sheep species living in a specific very cool climate unlike Scotland's: otherwise the cashmere fibers just don't grow.
Chinese fiber is made into yarn in Scotland, but for cheaper products the yarn is sent back to China and the knitting is done there. This is crazy, but it's because the Scottish origin labeling laws allow such products to be labeled as made in Scotland. It comes down to value added, and the value is determined by the wages in the countries involved. Many consumers think of value as something more commonsense, such as 60 percent value being 60 percent of the labor time.
You can bet that for a diffusion brand the minimum Scottish contact has been had with these scarves. A diffusion brand is used when a brand wants the hoi polloi's money without tarnishing the image of their main brand.
In general I have no problem with national origin laws allowing some content from other countries. I don't think that steel used in Swiss watches needs to use Alpine iron ore. But the massive wage differences between countries allow the system to be arbitraged and scammed. Manufacturers support this system, but if there were complete transparency the whole house of cards would collapse. I'd like to see component-by-component, process-by-process disclosure. Made in Japan Seiko watches can be made completely in Malaysia if there's a Japanese engineer and quality control guy on the factory floor. How the heck is that made in Japan?
I think a class action lawsuit could prevail on this stuff. Just because some legislature or trade organization says you can say "Made in ..." if certain standards are met, that doesn't give them the right to change the English language. "Made in" means something specific, and none of this stuff is actually made where they claim it's made.
And you bring up great points.
Sadly, I generally assume that ”Made in...” will only meet the minimum requirements nowadays. As an example, the cashmere scarves made by the mill you listed above start at $175. So there’s no way that we’re going to get a similar scarf for $50 without some corners being cut!
That said, you never know if the same corners are being cut on the $175 scarves too!
It is not at all similar to the Swiss watch industry.