Visitors to Première Vision could’nt resist a smile at the (by now iconic) Woolmark image of a flock of stylishly ‘cool’ Merino sheep in Ray-Ban shades, which met them at the entrance.

The image really set the scene, for the re-launch of Cool Wool, drawing buyers and designers to the wealth of lightweight wools on show, and putting wool firmly back on the map as an elegant, yet functional fabric for spring garments, which keeps cool in hot weather. Merino wool’s natural breathable and thermal-management properties really do make it highly suitable for warmer climates.

This is all part of the efforts to bring wool back into favour, after many years when all promotional activity of woollen products had been stopped.  Wool, without promotion had a difficult time losing a lot of its market share, despite the many new developments which had brought finer softer merino wools in knitwear and wovens – which just proved how important marketing is.

Now ‘The Campaign for Wool’ www.campaignforwool.org is making up for lost time, and AWI (Australian Wool Innovation) is putting huge efforts into rebranding wool.  The Cool Wool relaunch is one such promotion to inform what wool can be. Another is the Woolmark Company’s new “Wool Lab” project, which is a seasonal guide to the best wool fabrics and yarns, which is proving to be an extremely effective tool, identifying inspirational wool trends for the fashion industry, including brands, retailers, manufacturers, spinners and weavers. It’s well worth getting your Ray-Bans on to have a look…..