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.

The government should focus on increasing productivity and investment in skills. The UK has a lower productivity level and growth than other countries such as Germany, France, and the US. A longer-term plan focused on investment in skills and innovation will amount to a more sustainable economic growth compared to short-term policy options such as the tax cuts proposed.

I attended the London Fashion Week show where the Queen came to present the Queen Elizabeth II Award for British Design to Richard Quinn. The energy in the room was effervescent, a jaded fashion audience giddy with excitement at meeting their queen, who was by far the chicest there, in her Angela Kelly designed powder blue suit. It was a joyous occasion. A real celebration of UK talent and skills.

“We are over producing and over wasting at the same time. We really need to readdress this and almost have to go back to basics to understand the new vision because if you just can do a bit of this and that but the whole industry needs to change.”

This week Fashion Roundtable’s Meg Pirie interviewed four graduates ahead of Loomshed’s Textile Graduate Talk Day. The interview covers traditional folk art, sustainable dyes, hand weaving and the use of surplus British wool from mills.

With more and more crafts being added to the Endangered Crafts List, this is an important conversation in preserving skills as well as our heritage here in the UK. These graduates were particularly focused on localism and small-scale production and it was particularly refreshing to discuss textiles from an earth-first perspective and away from the tired growth model.

Amelia Twine, founded Sustainable Fashion Week in the UK and also chairs Fashion Roundtable's Sustainability and Justice Committee. Here she shares more about the issues with the fast-fashion model and the traction that the partnership between Shein and the Or Foundation received last week, as well as the waste and human rights issues prevalent in the sector. Amelia calls on policy decisions that level the playing field to prompt the action required for accountability needed now.

This week, we hear from owner Clare Campbell, the founder of Prickly Thistle, the only B Corp mill in the UK. Over the last few years Clare has been collaborating with academics and students in Scotland undertaking fundamental research into effectively taking coarse dense British wool fibres and making them suitable for apparel. Clare shares Prickly Thistle’s goal for social equity and offers insight into why as a country with over 30 million sheep, we imported 36.13 million kilograms and exported 20.5 million kilograms of wool in 2021 alone. A staggering fact as we move yet further into a state of climate emergency.

Amelia Twine, Co-chair of Sustainability & Social Justice Committee,
Founder of Sustainable Fashion Week UK reviews Fashion Revolution’s Textile Garden as part of Chelsea Flower Show.

In this OPed by Fashion Roundtable’s Committee member, Fran Sheldon shares more on the “Give (Back) Credit to the Heritage Communities” project which seeks to reposition the value of cultural craft within the fashion system, and proposes a new collaborative and considered approach to the creative process when working with heritage communities.

A story of the heritage and culture woven through the Welsh woollen industry with insights from the real people working to keep it alive.