Fashion pieces generally look as if they could have been made anywhere in the world; they rarely describe the culture of the nation from which they originate. However, one designer in the UK, Dai Rees, feels passionately about this issue. He has been using a fabric, Shu that has for centuries been handcrafted in Northern Pakistan.

In the Chitral, a region in the Hindu Kush Mountains, 830 miles from Karachi, thousands of villages are sustained by the women whose spinning skills provide their primary source of income. From the fine-woolled sheep that graze there, these women produce a material...