Once you think about alpaca clothing, you probably think of lovely soft scarves and ponchos, more suitable for a city break than a trip to the mountains. However a closer look at the properties of alpaca wool shows that it is among the highest performing fibres around. Like merino wool, alpaca is made of keratin protein fibres, which have been shown to operate very well in harsh conditions. Additionally, alpaca wool is exclusive in that its fibres are medullated – in layman’s terms, sections of the fibre have less dense cores – which gives it an extra performance boost.

The key benefits of alpaca wool
Alpaca keeps you warm in the cold and cool in the heat. Like other types of wool, alpaca fibres have a natural curvature to them creating air-pockets within the weave. These air pockets help with thermal regulation across a range of temperatures. Additionally, the medullated cores imply that alpaca wool is extra cozy and extra cool!

Natural odour resistance and antibacterial properties. Artificial fibres have a repute for being stinky and manufacturers have come up with treatments to resolve that, however alpaca wool doesn’t want any help in this department. It repels micro organism naturally, meaning it is odour-free even after heavy use. Since you possibly can wear alpaca for longer, one alpaca wool shirt can replace two or three synthetic or cotton ones.

Alpaca wool is breathable and dries quickly. Alpaca wool is ideal as a sweat-wicking layer as the fibres take up sweat from your skin and move it outwards, that means you’ll feel dry and recent even after a scorching, steep climb. When it does get wet, alpaca wool dries quicker than any other natural fibre.

Light but highly durable. Alpaca fibres have high tensile power and are quite stretchy, so they are less likely to break throughout production or when knitted into your alpaca wool base layer. The "semi-hollow" construction of alpaca also makes it further light, so alpaca wool mid layers are highly packable and excellent for keeping you warm around camp or as an additional layer on the airplane.

Environmentally friendly. Alpacas thrive when roaming semi-free (they're often corralled at night for safety) at high altitudes of their natural habitat: the Peruvian Andes mountains. Alpaca wool is a renewable fibre as it grows back yearly without a lot outside influence and it biodegrades when thrown away. As a bonus, alpaca dung is used by farmers as fertiliser and cooking fuel; conveniently alpacas tend to make use of widespread dung piles, making it really straightforward to collect!

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