TextielLab goes sustainable | The rise of local wool

Photo by Geisje van der Linden

In December, a large flock of sheep gathered on the grounds of the TextielMuseum for a walk through the centre of Tilburg. It was already the third Wool March, with which shepherds and designers aim to boost the image of local wool. The TextielLab wholeheartedly supports this initiative. Together with a dedicated group of makers and suppliers, the lab also seeks to put Dutch wool back on the map.

Materials advisor Lise Brunt is on a sustainability mission. To achieve this, she relies on a carefully built network of sustainable suppliers. This small group of passionate specialists is working to reduce the textile industry’s footprint by using locally grown, renewable raw materials wherever possible. One “forgotten” resource of which around 1.5 million kilos are available annually in the Netherlands is sheep’s wool. However, Dutch sheep’s wool has long been regarded as a waste product. Farmers often receive only 5 cents per kilo, and for brown and black wool they even have to pay to have it removed. In many cases, it is cheaper to burn the wool than to process it into high-quality yarn.

Merino wool from Zeeland

At the same time, wool is imported from the other side of the world. Something doesn’t quite add up, you might think. Of course, it has to do with costs—think of the huge flocks in Australia versus small-scale local production. It is also related to the somewhat coarser, stiffer properties of wool from Dutch sheep. Yet Merino sheep are also kept in Zeeland. At Wolboerderij Blij Bezuiden, soft, non-itchy Dutch Merino wool is produced with a fibre diameter of 16 to 21 microns. The TextielLab keeps it in stock and works with the Ministry of Knits, which supplies it on demand. The lab also collaborates with several other suppliers of different types of sustainable, locally produced wool, such as The Knitwit Stable, De Zachte Stad by Christine Meindertsma, and Ecological Textiles.

Replaced by polyester

With the help of these enterprises, can Dutch sheep regain their market? It is no easy task: consumers have been thoroughly seduced by fast fashion. This industry is built for 70 per cent on materials that can be produced quickly and cheaply—often virgin polyester. It is now well known that polyester is not a great choice for clothing, for example, as it releases microplastics with every wash. “For that reason alone, polyester is not an option for us, not even when recycled,” says Marita Bartelet. In 2005, she and her husband founded Ecological Textiles in Roermond, which has been supplying various environmentally responsible yarns to the TextielLab for many years.

Local and small-scale

Almost everything supplied by Ecological Textiles is GOTS-certified, meaning it is grown and produced under controlled conditions with respect for people and nature. That means humane for both people and animals, produced with fair wages and in safe working conditions, without the use of harmful chemicals. Add to that the requirements of small-scale, local production and long lifespan, and Dutch wool quickly ranks among the top three yarns you can work with confidently, Bartelet assures. Nevertheless, the “goodness” of wool is still sometimes questioned. This is mainly due to the mass production involving enormous flocks of Merino sheep in Australia, which overgraze and trample the land, produce significant greenhouse gas emissions, and suffer from practices such as mulesing without anaesthetic. “That’s simply too many sheep together to do it properly,” says Bartelet.

Kempisch heath sheep

In the Netherlands, sheep are kept on a completely different scale. They often graze on dykes and uneven land that is unsuitable for other uses. Ecological Textiles sources much of its wool locally in Roermond, from the Beatrixhoeve, where sheep, guided by a shepherd and dog, graze on the heath of De Meinweg National Park. It could hardly be more local. The so-called Kempisch heath sheep, traditionally kept in this region, help preserve the heath by preventing grass from taking over, thereby making space for other plants and animals. Hopefully, they can also help save the struggling Dutch wool industry from disappearing altogether.

Spinning across the border

Bartelet does point out a missing link in the process: wool from Dutch sheep must first be sent to Belgium and Germany before it becomes usable yarn, as there are no longer facilities in the Netherlands for washing and spinning wool. “I used to work in one of the last wool weaving mills in the Netherlands, in Kerkrade. We made coats for postmen, which used to be made from pure new wool. But when polyester arrived, all the wool companies went bankrupt. It would be a fantastic step towards sustainability if there were once again a place in the Netherlands for spinning small batches—could a modern ‘mini mill’ be something for the TextielLab?”

Shrinking, felting and dyeing

She hopes that artists and designers working at the TextielLab will play an increasingly important role in reviving the Dutch wool industry, simply by using it more. “Wool is incredibly versatile. It is strong, warm, insulating, long-lasting, can be shrunk and felted, takes dye very well, and is completely biodegradable.” It is true that wool from the Netherlands can be somewhat stiffer or coarser due to the climate compared to wool from, for example, Australia or South America. However, this also offers advantages for certain applications.

Example projects

For instance, Arantza Vilas recently experimented at the TextielLab with a blend of nettle yarn and wool from Kempisch heath sheep to weave origami-like structures that can stand upright on their own. For her Bio-inspired Textile Folds, a compactly woven thick yarn made from this wool proved both strong and light enough to create a self-supporting structure that could, for example, function as a partition.

A more recent project is by Damien Ajavon, who insisted on using local “waste wool” for his work in the government building in Oslo. For this jacquard-woven map of Oslo, a wool blend from the Ministry of Knits was used, combining leftover wool from the bellies of Zeeland Merino sheep with wool from meat sheep.

Interested in the properties of Dutch wool? In the Sample Studio next to the lab, you can find excellent examples. Feel free to email our materials advisor if you would like to learn more: lise.brunt@textiellab.

Text by Willemijn de Jonge