WOOL & THE NEED FOR TWEED — Simon Reinhold

It might be the original performance material. In our constant industrial development, it seems we tend to ignore one of the most historically useful and prized natural materials - wool and its camouflaged derivative, tweed.

We have farmed wool for millennia. It built fortunes and great family dynasties particularly in the port towns of my home in Norfolk where wool merchants grew rich on the profits of their trade and built great monuments to God in the hope of persuading themselves that they too might pass through the eye of the needle when the time came. For a time it underpinned almost an entire economy.

Now we have reduced wool to cheap house insulation and in some cases even compost. Rarely has a material fallen so far in value in the modern world as wool. Yet its modern replacements are coming under increased scrutiny as we realise just how damaging to the environment they can be.

One of the most popular garments for outdoor types these days is polyester fleece. It is essentially plastic clothing cleverly branded as a must-have luxury item. It's the Crocs shoes of the torso but without the perceived lack of style, and because everyone is wearing one, no one in the 'comfier-than-thou' brigade wants to admit there is a problem. Until now.

In November 2017 the world woke up to the issue of plastic pollution in the marine environment when an episode of the Blue Planet, narrated by Sir David Attenborough, aired on BBC television. The speed and scale of the political tide turning against single-use plastics in particular, must have taken even him by surprise. Within 48hrs questions were being asked in parliament. It was a lesson for everyone about how fast and how completely opinion can be channeled in the age of social media.

It may surprise you to learn that every time you wash a fleece item of clothing it sheds microfibres into the water system much of which is destined to end up in the marine environment. According to some, cheaper fleece can shed up to 250,000 microfibre plastics into the environment when washed in a top-loading washing machine. In a genuine attempt to atone for their part the studies that discovered this were commissioned by the very company that was in large part responsible for popularising synthetic wool in the early 1980s - Patagonia.

As polyester fleece was re-branded 'polar fleece’ the marketeers of the profit-hungry, petrochemical industry celebrated their early win over natural fibres. The company that developed the first fleece material - Malden Mills in the US, then teamed up with Yvon Chouinard of Patagonia to produce ‘Synchilla' (I kid you not), and a new outdoors aesthetic was born that would develop into a global brand with 1000 employees and a 200 million dollar revenue stream.

The outdoor clothing sector worldwide cottoned on and told us we needed these products as solutions to problems; problems we didn't have. As New York-based writer James Lauren Keiles put it: "these jackets proclaim plush humorlessness without any wink at the cheapness of their fabric. They seem to deny their history, rebranding polyester as luxurious and scarce”; when it is anything but.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. There are some exceptional products on the market that mimic luxury fleece but without the environmental cost. Ritter Apparel in the US makes a gilet from a blend of Alpaca and Merino wool, two of the finest natural fibres that man has ever harnessed to keep him warm. The Alpaca gives the luxury almost Cashmere feel and the merino wool has antibacterial and moisture-wicking properties which make pure Merino the first choice for base layers of many outdoor sportsmen and women (me included). The blend Ritter use is 60/40 Alpaca / Merino to gain the softness of Alpaca, which is harder wearing than Cashmere, but the price is kept under control with the inclusion of Merino. The Merino also allows for a tighter weave.

There are a huge variety of tweeds to choose from but each is a pattern designed from dyed wools with different properties. Cheviot wool is harder wearing although rough to the touch than Shetland wool for example and cloth is woven from them reflects that as do the garments. Although any shooting breeks in hard-wearing wool can be lined with silk to have the best of both worlds. Donegal tweed is flecked with colour rather than a designed colour scheme and tends to be durable and warm. Saxony tweed is named after a deal done in the 1500s that broke the closely guarded monopoly the Spanish had over their Merino sheep and the superb wool they were famed for. After a small flock was given as a diplomatic gift the shepherds of Saxony increased the national flock to around 4 million animals. As Merino wool is soft enough to wear next to the skin the cloth and clothes made from them are outstanding.

Arguably the most well-known of the tweeds is Harris Tweed. This is Scotland’s equivalent of the French appellation contrôlée in food. The rules surrounding Harris Tweed are enshrined by an act of parliament and have been responsible for the industry surviving to this day (although it was close to extinction in the ’60s and ’70s with the onset of synthetic fibres). It can only be called Harris Tweed if it is “handwoven by the islanders at their homes in the Outer Hebrides, finished in the Outer Hebrides, and made from pure virgin wool dyed and spun in the Outer Hebrides”.

The original camouflage for deerstalkers and grouse shooters in the 19th century was popularised but the Victorian's obsession with Scottish sporting estates as the new railways made them accessible and regular shooting parties were assembled. Warm when wet and hard-wearing estates with different terrain began to order patterns and colours that would suit their own land. Greys and blues for the granite country and browns and reds for more vegetated land allowed the shooting professionals, the gamekeepers to blend into the landscape as they approached their quarry from the right side of the wind. It was silent to crawl in too which for deerstalkers was crucial. A deer’s defence mechanisms being based around three senses: sound, sight and smell. Their tweed took care of two of them and knowing how the wind eddies around a mountain, the very essence of the skill of the head stalker, took care of the third. The closer you got the more chance of an accurate shot for the guest whose skill could vary widely.

Wool has been with us since man began farming and it is only very recently that our heads have been turned away from our connection to the land - a connection that wool embodies. Knowing what we do now, perhaps it's time to gather up our warm, plastic clothing, consign it to another purpose and use the naturally superior fibre that is wool and its many blends and take advantage of evolution’s superb design. Sadly although it would be an elegant reversal of polarity, we can’t put the polar fleece in the loft as insulation as being plastic it is the very opposite of flame retardant. Mine is now used as dog bedding.