Why there is no substitute for wool

There’s a legendary black and white photo in a Yorkshire archive of a group from a local mill, pictured in front of a coach taking them to the coast.

A look at the day trippers, from top management to shop floor, reveals that everyone in the picture is wearing wool.

Overcoats, suits, jackets, dresses, skirts, slacks, hats and scarves, all in wool, was the norm in times when strict dress codes ruled everyday life.

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.

Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.

Sign up

Mills in the valleys of Yorkshire, Scotland and the West of England rolled out mile upon mile of wool yarn and fabric for the British High Street and beyond.

That was until someone suggested that newly-developed synthetics made from petroleum would be a cheap substitute.

Not realising the environmental impact of such a decision, British retailers abandoned wool and natural fibres, and flooded the fashion market with Bri-Nylon, Terylene, Acrilan, Courtelle and many more toxic petroleum derivatives.

It took four decades or more for consumers to realise the damage that plastic would wreak on the precarious global ecological balance.

The Prince of Wales began his Campaign for Wool some ten years ago to highlight the urgent need for greater environmental responsibility in the world of fashion and lifestyle.

What he said then still holds true today: “Wool is a product that the most brilliant boffin in the most hi-tech laboratory could never create.”

Wool is natural, renewable and biodegradable, only requiring the sunshine, water and grass that sheep need to grow a fleece of wool every year. By wearing it, you will begin to make a truly positive contribution towards a more sustainable lifestyle for yourself and, perhaps more importantly, for future generations.

Continue investing in a wool wardrobe and you will very soon start to realise that wool garments need only minimal care, require very infrequent washing - and if you do wash them, they won’t shed any nasty microplastics that end up in the ocean.

They keep you cool when it’s hot and warm when it’s not, manage odour remarkably well, and feel much more comfortable next to skin than any other fibre.

If you feel like parting with one of your wool garments, be assured that at the end of its wearable life, wool is fully biodegradable in both land and water and will never, like most other fibres, linger in landfill eternally.

Dame Vivienne Westwood, for many years passionately concerned about climate change, encourages shoppers to ‘buy less, choose well, make it last’. And her pleas to consumers to reduce their carbon footprint and be mindful of the impact that carefree consumerism is having on a delicate global eco balance are, at last, no longer falling on deaf ears.