Cloth Types

Australia is the world’s largest producer of wool accounting for approximately 30% of global production. There are many types of wool but all have a number of features that make it particularly suitable for clothing:

• 100% natural
• Comfortable to wear in any climate because it breathes
• Good to tailor and keeps its shape
• Natural crimp-like spring gives clothes beautiful drape and incredible crease resistance
• Durable and robust, it will last for years as the interlocking protein molecules in wool fibres have the power to elongate, stretch and recover
• Natural elasticity means garments yield to body movement
• Comes in a wide variety of textures, weaves and weights
• Easy to dye as the dye becomes part of the wool fibre
• Stays cleaner longer because it resists stains

Pure Merino wool is naturally fine, silky and super soft. It is the finest grade of commercial wool available, with fibres ranging in diameter from the equivalent of top quality cotton to that of silk, and is technically more complex than synthetics. Merino is extremely comfortable to wear when used in woven fabrics, which are available in a variety of weights. Each Merino fleece consists of up to 100 million fibres. If you were to join the fibres of five Merinos together you could tie a bow around the world.
Merino sheep have a history going back over twelve hundred years and were first introduced into Australia in 1797 when two British officers brought a flock of Spanish Merino sheep to Sydney via the Cape Colony . However it was not until the 1820s when 5,000 Merino sheep were imported from Saxony , France and England that the foundations of the modern Australian wool industry were laid. Since then Merino wool has become one of Australia ’s greatest trading successes.

A woven, woollen fabric, which is most often used in suits and trousers. There are both woollen and worsted flannels, with the final choice dependent on the outcome required. Worsted Fabrics are often spun using the worsted process. Worsted is a smooth compact woollen, spun from the longer fibres, more than 65mm in staple length, of the fleece. It has a firm, smooth finish, is strong, cool and hardwearing and can be lightweight. Primarily used for men’s suits, jackets and trousers. Originally named after the village of Worsted near Norwich in England , a centre for worsted weaving.

The origin of the word tweed is a corruption of the Scottish term tweel. It applies to a wide variety of rough twilled woollen weaves and cloths used for suits, jackets and over-coats.

Woven from butting yarns containing short fibres arranged at random so the fabric is relatively thick with a fuzzy surface, it ranges from all kinds of cheviot fabrics to fine Saxony textures, which are finished with either a dress face or a clear finish.

Cashmere is extremely fine with an ultra soft touch. Its use as a luxury fibre can be traced back as far as Roman times, and we know that by the 15 th century more than 50,000 people were employed in India in the processing of cashmere.

The name comes from Kashmir , the wild and mountainous region on the Indian sub continent. Cashmere consists of the fine under hair of the Asiatic Falconeri goat that lives and breeds in China , Mongolia , Afghanistan and Iran . Each goat is combed by hand in the spring when they are shedding the fine under hair that protected them during the bitterly cold winter at altitudes exceeding 5,000 meters.

Late in the 19 th century a Scottish manufacturer, Joseph Dawson developed the first mechanical method of separating the fine down fibres from the goat’s courser outer hairs and much of the manufacture shifted to Scotland , but in recent years the majority of processing has again moved, this time to China.

A fibre sourced from the pashmina goat raised by nomads on the wind swept, icy high plains of Ladakh in the Himalayas . In order to withstand the intense cold the goat grows a thick and extremely fine fleece, which is trimmed rather than sheared, to avoid damaging the delicate fibres that are eight times thinner than the human hair.

Vicuna is reputed to be the world’s most luxurious natural fibre. With each strand less than half the diameter of the finest sheep’s wool Vicuna is prized for it’s incredible quality and comfort.

The vicuna is a member of the camelid family and is closely related to the llama. A native of the South American Andes it lives at altitudes of 12,000 to 18,000 feet where conditions are extreme. Each animal yields only an average of one-quarter pound of hair each season.

In the late 1970s its outstanding qualities, which had been highly prized since the days of the Incas, saw the Vicuna almost hunted to extinction. As a result export of the fleece was banned for many years.

However a remarkable conservation effort in Peru , Chile and Argentina has led to a resurgence of the native Vicuna population and export activity has resumed.

Resources are now carefully managed to ensure continued growth in numbers in the coming years.