Hidden in the mists of the high Andes, a mystical and almost magical little animal – the alpaca has journeyed over five millennia, domesticated and in partnership with their human owners. 1000 years before the Great Pyramid of Giza was completed, the ancient ancestors of the Inca were measuring their wealth by the numbers of alpacas they owned, enjoying the finest garments woven from the fleece of their great alpaca herds.

Members of the pre-Incan nobility were draping themselves in multicoloured robes of gossamer sheen produced from the alpaca fibre.