One of the fundamental aims of the International Wool Textile Organisation (IWTO) is to do our best to educate the world about is the versatility of wool as a natural and sustainable resource. A leading exemplar of this principle in the United Kingdom is the Green Grads Wool Hub, a collective of furniture designers, product designers, textile designers, weavers and knitwear designers who are committed to exploring the potential of British wool to its fullest extent.
The Versatility of British Wool
In 2022, Grace Arrowsmith, a sixth generation sheep farmer from Northamptonshire, and a Design graduate from Loughborough University, joined forces with Niamh Wright, a Textiles graduate from Arts University Bournemouth, to form the Green Grads Wool Hub. The initiative arose as part of that year’s Green Grads exhibition. Green Grads was founded by multi-award-winning design journalist Barbara Chandler, with the aim of fuelling UK environmental action with new talent from our universities, through shows, pop-ups, Salons, film,” etc.
While Green Grads features designers whose work addresses environmental challenges, the Green Grads Wool Hub focuses on British wool fleeces. Both Grace and Niamh, as well as the collaborators who joined their initiative, were driven by a passion to demonstrate wool’s potential. In so doing, they wanted to make clear to the public just how useful and thus valuable, British wool actually is. “Wool is such an incredible resource and British wool is massively undervalued today,” Grace says.
The Wool Hub thus has a dual focus, showcasing both the creative possibilities of wool, and drawing attention to the current plight of British wool producers. In 2021, Grace’s family farm sold 1,000 fleeces and received only £135 – a mere 14p per fleece. When you consider that the cost of shearing a single ewe is £1.50, you soon realise that wool production in the UK is far from a profitable industry. This experience is not unique to Grace and her family.
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Wool Hub Projects
The Wool Hub has held numerous interactive workshops and exhibitions since their debut in 2022. The workshops teach skills such as hand spinning and carding, helping to revive wool-working skills that have been waning in popularity for a very long time. The hope is that renewing and spreading these skills will help to revive demand for wool, thus bringing its market value nearer to what it should be.
For her part, Grace channelled her outrage over the current state of the British wool industry into a unique design project called ‘Flock’. The project combines traditional methods with modern digital processes to create a collection of British wool samples for a women’s seasonless collection. To find inspiration, she looked to the smocks traditionally worn by farmers in the 18th and 19th Centuries, which carried embroidery designs deeply connected to their communities and regions of origin. All the wool used in the collection comes from Grace’s own flock.
All the participants in Green Grads Wool Hub hope to educate the public about the huge value of wool as a versatile, natural resource, and gather mutual support for this industry that deserves to be so much more prosperous than it currently is.
You can find out more about Grace Arrowsmith and her work here. Visit the Green Grads website for more information about the initiative or visit the below Instagram pages to stay up-to-date on the latest news:
– @greengradsuk
– @the.wool.hub
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