The more I become involved in trying to promote wool the more I realise just how small, insignificant and utterly useless I am at it. Or maybe I should say “ineffective” rather than “useless”. On my own, I can wave my arms around and shout but it doesnt achieve much. Where I can be effective is when I recruit all of you passionate wool producers and users out there to expand and amplify what The Campaign For Wool is saying.
As pointed out on the recent Artisans Day, one of the biggest problems is so fundamental to the change we want to encourage that it has to be addressed urgently in order to make progress – at least down at our end of the community. That problem is terminology. When is WOOL not the fleece from a sheep but a generalised term for all fibres – natural or otherwise?
We in the UK do have several different terms in use for wool – all with slightly different meanings. Those in the know tend to use WOOL for sheep fleece and FIBRE for anything else. I never call my cashmere or mohair anything other than fibre for example.We also tend to say YARN for knitting or weaving wools since we know that such yarn can consist of any type of fibre. We would say 100% wool yarn if that’s what we meant, or 50:50 wool and silk yarn etc.. But this distinction is lost on the general non fibre educated public and there is a general air of complacency and lack of awareness in the sheep wool industry about this lack of precision.
I was somewhat taken aback to be approached by an Alpaca breeder recently asking to be included in the CFW and saying that our efforts were making a difference to their sales! People were coming to her saying they knew lots more now about the benefits of wool and really wanted to buy it!! I tactfully pointed out that the CFW was about SHEEP wool and therefore she could not be included in promotions – she was not happy to say the least! In this instance, some of the confusion has arisen due to the inclusion of Alpaca fibre in The Wool Directory down here in the South West. I had thought this was solely for sheep producers, and so did not include any info about my cashmere for example in my entry, but Alpaca has also been included. The result is some confusion all round and dilution of the core message which is that sheep wool desperately needs our support if the industry is to survive. It would be good to see the Wool Directory become the FIBRE Directory as a first step to removing confusion.
Does this matter you might ask? Surely its great that people are interested in WOOL whatever its composition? Well, up to a point yes of course that’s true, but people are, to be corny, having the wool pulled over their eyes in their ignorance! Some do want to buy sheep wool and help promote our industry but if they dont understand the difference between wool and Alpaca for example, or even that silk is not grown by sheep (I kid you not -this came up at a fair I attended once!) then they cannot make that informed choice.
My trip to Bradford (see previous post) showed me that while the Wool Board and Haworths are currently riding up high on increased prices, the whole thing is VERY delicately balanced. They and all the subsidiary businesses that depend on them are reinventing themselves faster than you would ever think possible in a hugely impressive and very exciting way but so much depends on the core messages about sheep wool being driven home clearly and unambiguously. Confusing it with other fibres is a luxury we cannot afford at the moment!!
So, if you are a Friend Of Wool, what is to be done? Here I come back to my feelings of inadequacy. On my own the answer is virtually nothing, but with our wider Artisan community there is hope! We all KNOW what sheeps wool is and understand the terminology. We need to get out there and spread the word as often as possible. Use the correct terminology (preaching to the converted here!) and encourage others to do so and crucially, understand the differences. The Campaign For Wool has accomplished great things largely through huge amounts of good will and voluntary effort by all involved plus the support of course of HRH The Prince of Wales. We need to ensure that its core messages get through loud and clear by removing the fog of confusion with other fibres whether animal, vegetable or synthetic.
Surely every little counts? From tiny acorns grow forests.
Have you heard of Wovember? A campaign to get people wearing 100% wool for this November and celebrate the fact that real wool comes from sheep. http://wovember.com/ I learnt about it from the Jamieson & Smith group on Ravelry. It has sparked off a few discussions around Ravelry about what “wool” is. Getting people talking is a good way to start changing ideas and re-defining a word that has lost it’s distinct meaning.
By: Dot on November 26, 2011
at 1:57 pm
I think you are very good at promoting wool; I learn much about the wool industry in the UK from this amazing blog and your tireless efforts to educate on fibre production and the British Wool Trade. But you are right that critical mass is key to spreading the word re: the value of WOOL, and we must all work together!
I am especially interested by what you say here about how you yourself – as a producer of luxury fibres – see the benefit of differentiating sheep’s wool from other kinds of animal fibres. I am not a producer of fibres, but even as a consumer I see some benefit to differentiating between distinct animal fibres. The more I learn about sheep’s wool, the more interested I become in taking this even a step further so that we can once again buy wool in a breed-specific way. I love that Finisterre are marketing the hat made from your flock as “Bowmont” for instance, and not merely as a “wool” hat; describing the hat as “Bowmont” describes precisely what it is made of, and I think we need more of this transparency and clarity, for the sake of preserving our different sheep breeds, and for spreading knowledge about what wool is.
I wish I understood more about how the confusion re: what wool is has arisen, historically, and also how we can move forward today to restore the word WOOL to its original meaning, as in sheep’s wool. I feel this is key to the success of the Campaign for Wool and of course for Wovember which one of your other readers has very kindly pointed out, and of which I must declare myself a team member!
This is a great post, and I appreciate very much hearing directly from you that there is benefit to the fibre grower for sheep’s wool to be differentiated from other kinds of animal fibres.
By: Felicity Ford on November 28, 2011
at 4:46 pm
Hello Felicity and Thank You! Actually, I;m not necessarily promoting a return to breed differentiation when I say we need to be clear about “wool” as a term although of course that would indeed be a great spin off for those of us who do produce speciality wool sheep – no the reason for the emphasis is to re-establish clear blue water between sheep wool and other fibres so that we can educate the public in the unique properties of sheeps wool. Time was when those properties were well known among the general population because we all wore the stuff but now many under 40s know virtually NOTHING about it.
Thanks to Wovember and other tireless workers out there we have a real opportunity to do something at the grass roots. Its a very serious issue.
By: devonfinefibres on November 28, 2011
at 5:01 pm