Canadian Wool Month 2021
October 2021
This year’s Wool Month ran throughout October, with collaborations and events featuring designers, producers and retailers — coast to coast.
Canadian Wool Month 2021 featured three different projects celebrating the versatility of wool in the fields of fashion, interior design, and art.
HOLT RENFREW CAPSULE COLLECTION
Canadian designers LINE, SMYTHE and ça va de soi, debuted a special limited edition wool collection including for the first time, items made from Canadian wool. This special collaboration with the Campaign for Wool is available at Holt Renfrew locations in Montreal (Ogilvy), Vancouver, and Toronto as well as online.
Among the collection is Canada’s first “100 Mile Blazer” made by Smythe which uses wool raised, milled, dyed and woven within 100 miles of the label’s Toronto studio. As The Globe & Mail notes, the blazer aims to showcase the possibilities of Canadian wool, including for high-quality and enduring fashion.
Canadian wool delegation to the united kingdom
Representatives of Canadian wool travelled to the United Kingdom to build links with the British and global wool industries, including visits to mills Abraham Moon and Johnston’s of Elgin, and meetings with the Worshipful Company of Woolmen — the Woolmen are the livery company representing wool producers since 1180.
The Canadians joined the Woolmen in the annual London Sheep Drive, where they ‘drove’ a flock of sheep across a bridge spanning the Thames to highlight the importance of wool and its sustainability benefits.
wool house
The Campaign has worked with producers and makers across the country and abroad to help a young Toronto family create their very own, sustainable “Wool House” as featured in the Toronto Star. The home showcases the many different applications of wool for living, including insulation, bedding, cleaning & laundry supplies, wall coverings. The artful wool wall coverings are a special collaboration between Chassagne Farm in Puslinch, Ontario, interior designer Dmitri Chris and manufacturer Creative Matters. For the Marcinkowski family, “wool is a perfect match - we appreciate its versatility, longevity and natural moisture-wicking ability.”
wool on wool fine art project
The Campaign for Wool Canada commissioned renowned Canadian artist T.M. Glass to produce a very special piece of art featuring Canadian sheep at the focal point. The work is printed with archival pigments on a rare wool paper made by Italian mill Gruppo Cordenons.
The story of the piece begins with the visit of a group of Shetland sheep to the artist’s garden. The artist photographed the visiting sheep and then went to work transforming the image in her Toronto studio. “In approaching this piece, my intent was to communicate the beauty of the sheep and its wool both visually and tactilely,” said Glass.
To learn more or to get involved in next year’s Canadian Wool Month, please contact Matthew Rowe at mrowe@campaignforwool.ca.