I wrote about this new initiative yesterday and today I wanted to say a few more words about this enterprising venture.

AAFF has been searching the world for a major end user for our Alpaca fiber. That search ended with AAFF entering into a joint venture agreement in May of this year with GFM Telas Parras. Telas Parras is one of the largest denim manufacturers in the world, having been in business for almost 110 years. Telas Parras has 5 textile mills in both Mexico and Italy.

Basically they offer to the world market fashion denims you may even have heard of: CDI Limited Edition, The Collection, Diffution and The Essentials. Major international customers of Telas Parras include Levis, Dickies, Wranglers, Liz Clayborne, Kohls and Wal-Mart .

Part of the pitch here is an eco angle and that is something I have been pushing for quite a while now and there is an article in the library about organic alpaca that may well interest you.



Imported jeans are big in the USA and despite sales being down in the first quarter of this year the numbers are huge.

In the first quarter of 2008 there 42.74 million pairs of women's jeans imported and 43.94 million pairs of men's jeans imported. Giving a total of about 86.60 million pairs of jeans which is about 9% less than the same quarter last year. So simple math tells me that there must be about 346 million pairs of jeans imported into the USA each year. WOW ! Believe it or not the average price of these jeans is about $6 imported. The real upmarket jeans cost more to make and have big marketing budgets and retail for over $60 per pair.....but the market for jeans over $60 is tiny.... which is just as well because I figure that even if by some miracle AAFF collects 250,000 lbs of fleece (say 50,000 alpacas at 5lbs each) then with an 80:20 cotton blend that is about 6ozs of alpaca fibre per pair of jeans which means about 600,000 pairs which is not many given the different styles and sizes that are needed....in fact it represents about one fifth of one percent of the total US import market for jeans........

Still I wish them every success and I will be selling them some of my fibre and will probably be inviting their truck to our alpaca show. I might even buy the jeans....