THE WOOL LAB S/S 2013

Woolmark presents the S/S 2013 edition of its seasonal guide to the best wool fabrics and yarns in the world.

Text by Anna Battista

If you work for the fashion industry you know how boring, superficial and often useless the catalogues identifying the trends for the next seasons can be with their mix of randomly selected images of art works, buildings or films.

Moving from the traditional trend catalogue, but reinventing it in a more useful way, The Woolmark Company came up with The Wool Lab, a guide that identifies the emerging trends for what regards Merino wool fabrics and yarns. The most important thing about this guide is the fact that it also provides further information about the best spinners and weavers in the world.

For the Spring/Summer 2013 season the moods go from the classic “Cool Wool” to formal “La Dolce Vita”, preppy “Newport”, colourful “Tribes”, influenced by street style, music, graphic and optical effects and punkish tones such as red and black, joyous “Pop” with fibres that are particularly suitable to absorb and maintain every type of dye, assuring lost lasting brilliance to colours, and eco friendly “Pure”, a trend that explores instead the green potential of Merino wool with no artificial dyes or chemical treatments.

The S/S 13 guide also includes delicate fibres ideal for wool crochet (“Saint Tropez” mood) and a limited edition section featuring the finest fabrics and yarns with a micron range going from 11 to 15.

Apart from the trends for the next season, the S/S 13 Wool Lab also looks at the new possibilities offered by yarns combined with high-tech materials and applied to sportswear to ensure breathability, temperature-control, elasticity, UV protection and fire resistance, proving that, while being less glamorous than sitting in the front row, going back to the roots of the fashion industry and discovering the potential of traditional materials, can be equally exciting.