Wool needs a clever marketer. Someone along the lines of N.W. Ayer & Son, the agency responsible for "A Diamond is Forever."
"Live in Wool" perhaps? Whether it's the celebrity knitting fad or the trend to natural materials, the once-staid textile is showing up in the fashionista's entire wardrobe: gauzy merino camisoles, cozy lambswool cardigans and handknit tuques, and supersmooth wool suitings.
We're not talking about cashmere, that legendarily soft fibre sheared from Himalayan goats. With the market flooded with affordable versions of the once-luxe material, sheep's wool has been wrongly cast as the ugly stepsister. And now it's fighting back.
The international wool industry is aggressively freshening up its image with a $6.6-million (U.S.) initiative announced in the fall.
According to Lori Sutaj of industry body Woolmark, which is leading the initiative, producers will work with designers and retailers to push the benefits of fine and superfine wool.
"There are new blends which have improved 'the handle' of the wool," Sutaj says, "which make it ideal to wear against the skin. It's a far cry from the itchy, scratchy stuff we remember from the fifties and sixties."
Just sink your hands into a pile of multicoloured lambswool sweaters at your local Club Monaco ( ) or superfine merino tees at Mountain Equipment Co-op ( ). The fine-gauge stuff is as delicate and soft as much of the cashmere you've seen at your local trend shop, but unlike cashmere, will usually do fine if it's thrown in the washer and laid flat to dry.
"My merino has worn extremely well over the years," says Marsha Ross of the Canadian Apparel Federation, an organization representing the trade side of the Canadian fashion industry.
"I have a lovely cashmere sweater set that I bought from Lord & Taylor in the States, in this wonderful moss green, but it's not wearing well. My merino, on the other hand -- it's European, a turtleneck in charcoal grey -- has really held up. I've had it for three years, maybe four."
Merino refers to the fine dense wool of merino sheep, which are native to Spain and now bred around the world. Wool, technically speaking, refers to a whole host of yarns from alpaca to mohair, with merino being the finest of them all.
Pat Kline, co-owner of Finishing Touches ( ) in Toronto, is also a wool proponent. As we speak, she is wearing a three-year-old, black, V-neck merino sweater. "It's my favourite," she confides.
"Cashmere took the market by storm over the last couple of years," she says. "And we sell a lot of cashmere in the $250-to-$495 range. But I had on one of my cashmere sweaters the other day -- and it was a $380 sweater -- and the bottom was all stretched out. So for your money, I'd say wool every time. In the long run, merino is the better buy unless you buy top, top quality cashmere."
And wool is a year-round fabric. "It has the unique ability to breathe," Sutaj says. "It can absorb up to a third of its weight in moisture without feeling damp." That makes it warm in winter, because it holds the cold air away from your body, and cool in summer -- who knew? -- because it wicks away perspiration.
Lightweight wool suits for the summer, whisper-weight wool polos perfect for spring: That's what Finishing Touches' Kline will be stocking for the coming warm-weather months.
She agrees that wool needs some good press. "You can think of it as you do black," she says. "It's like 'black is the new black,' since it really was out and is back in again. How about 'wool is the new cashmere?' "
Wash and wear
Handwashing: "Wool is easy to care for," says Jacqueline Sava of Jacq's Hats in Toronto ( ). Her knitwear company recently introduced Soak, a biodegradable wash so gentle it doesn't need to be rinsed out. Her tips for handwashing: Look for a near-neutral pH wash product. Soak item in cool water and squeeze suds through gently. Squeeze out excess water and roll in a towel. Lay flat to dry.
Machine washing: If a manufacturer recommends dry cleaning, that is the safe route. However, many knits are now treated to be washable on the gentle cycle. Use a liquid product such as Woolite or Zero and use a fast spin cycle to get the wool as dry as possible before laying to dry. Maintenance: Because of wool's natural elasticity, Cheryl Mendelson, author of Laundry: The Home Comforts Book of Caring for Clothes and Linens, suggests letting a garment rest for a day between wearings to let it return to its proper shape. And if you are travelling, you can banish wrinkles by hanging a wool garment in a steamy bathroom.