Andlewool

The Plant

Andlewool doesn't come from an animal at all, whatever the name suggests. It's spun from the fiber of a flowering vine native to Andle Forest, the same forest the old Woodsmen once tended before Brann's fire took them. The vine grows fast, climbs anything vertical, and produces a fiber so fine it can be woven nearly as soft as true wool, while holding up to a decade of hard wear before it frays.
  The Woodsmen taught it to the Gypsies generations back, along with most of what they knew about living quietly off a forest without wrecking it. It's one of the last things that survived them.

Why the Gypsies Prize It

It isn't beauty that makes Andlewool valuable to the Weepers. It's discretion.
  A people who spent generations underground, hiding from persecution, cannot afford clothing that announces itself. Andlewool takes dye poorly on purpose, by design refined over centuries, holding only muted greys and browns no matter what you soak it in. It doesn't shine. It doesn't rustle loudly in a quiet tunnel. It wears out slowly enough that a single garment can outlast the person who wove it, which matters a great deal to a community that has, at various points in its history, needed to leave everything behind on short notice.
  Upper-city tailors who've tried to copy it always fail at the dye resistance, which they treat as a flaw. The Gypsies could tell them it's the entire design, but nobody's asked them nicely enough yet.
  There's a second reason it holds so long, beyond the weave itself. Andlewool is harvested rather than felled, cut back season after season the way the Woodsmen taught, and a properly tended vine keeps producing for decades rather than dying out after one good crop. A single plant, cared for correctly, can clothe three generations of the same family. Few materials in the Market carry that kind of quiet permanence, and fewer still are prized for it rather than for how they shine.
  I own three shirts of it myself, purchased at considerable expense from a stall in Togs. They are, without exception, the most comfortable clothing I've ever owned, and the least likely to get me noticed in a crowd. For a man in my line of work, that second quality is worth more than the first.
  I've had merchants from Andilain offer to buy the shirts off my back at triple what I paid. I've declined every time. Some things aren't actually for sale, whatever the coin on offer, and a fabric bred over generations to keep a persecuted people quietly alive is rather high on that list.