The world's most expensive fabric is generally considered to be vicuna wool, followed by other ultra-luxury natural fibers. Vicuna is a wild South American camelid related to alpacas and llamas, and its fleece is extremely rare, ultra-fine, and can only be shorn every two to three years in strictly regulated harvests in Peru and Bolivia. Vicuna wool is finer than cashmere, incredibly soft, lightweight, and warm, and fabric made from it can cost $1,500 to $3,000 per yard, with finished coats costing $20,000 or more. Other contenders for most expensive fabric include guanaco wool, also very rare, Shahtoosh, which is made from the chiru antelope and is now illegal in most places due to conservation, and high-grade baby cashmere and musk ox qiviut. Among silks, the most expensive is wild lotus silk, handwoven in Myanmar from lotus stem fibers, which can take months to produce a single scarf. By comparison, mulberry silk satin is expensive at $30 to $80 per yard but is far less expensive than vicuna. The high price of these fabrics comes from extreme rarity, difficult harvesting, low yield, and labor-intensive production.
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