As a follow on from the pilot launch of Fashion Roundtable’s wool programme in 2022, after vast amounts of qualitative and quantitative research and conversations with key stakeholders came the launch of The Great British Wool Revival, an open source tool that connects farmers, designers, makers and industry together to join the dots and make traceable British wool more accessible in fashion supply chains from farm right through to final product. 

Website design and art direction by www.studiobyfarr.co.uk

For this week's podcast, our Slow-fashion Policy Lead Meg Pirie is in conversation with Ruth Rands, founder of knitwear label Herd. We first met Ruth at one of our initial roundtables focused on wool and Herd is one of our most cited case studies, because of their localised business model and best-practice processes, with provenance at its heart. Through her label, Herd, Ruth has shown what is possible here in the UK, sourcing everything within 150 miles. 

I am often asked where the idea for a soil to skin, vertically integrated yarn and knitwear brand came from - and perhaps HERD would never have come into being without these unconventional roots - but it actually came from seaweed of all things, in my prior brand where we sourced wild, naturally occurring seaweed directly from harvesters around the U.K, Ireland and Northern Europe.

Salts Mill hosted the Campaign for Wool's launch event leading to the current Wool Week last Thursday night. The Heritage site in Bradford (the cultural capital of the worlds's wool industry) is to the keratin fibre what Bournville is to Chocolate.