Apr 10

Apr 10 Farming Fashion: Faces and Landscapes of South West England Fiber Farms

A goal of the UK fibershed movement over the last two years has been to bring together the worlds of fashion and farming. Not only conversation, but also working collaborations have been catalyzed into action. Within the last two years, regional fibersheds have seen more queries from brands of all sizes looking to onshore their sourcing and manufacture after decades of being overseas.

In early 2021, I went on the road with filmmaker and photographer Hatty Bell to discover and profile—across media—seven fiber farms across South West England from Gloucestershire to Cornwall. We chose each location for how they further advance the commercial production of fiber, specifically sheep and alpaca fleece, from Middle Campscott, the first ever producer of organically certified yarns in the UK, using a triple purpose flock kept for meat, dairy and wool, to Fernhill Farm, now the first farm in the UK to produce a verifiable source of regeneratively farmed fiber. Along the way we made a short film, Fibreshed: Reconnecting Fashion to Farming, which premiered at London Fashion Week in June 2021. Consumers might be getting better at asking ‘who made my clothes?’ but we wanted to challenge the viewer to ask who grew them too. In so doing, we are forefronting the voices, faces, and landscapes too often silent at the glossy end of the fashion value chain, and provoking our domestic industry to consider why we are not placing greater value on the natural fibers produced on our doorstep within responsible, organic, and even regenerative farming systems.

“The most significant disruptive potential of the fibershed movement comes from the request it makes of us to reimagine fashion as something defined by, and for, our place and our community, rather than by globalized industry that has nothing to do with us and our homelands. ”

In an effort to bioregion fashion, or create a system that supports the production of clothing in a way that allows our environment and communities to flourish, mapping our local natural fiber resources is the first step we are taking at the South West England Fibreshed. [1] Foundational to the fibreshed model of textile production—“local fibers, local dyes, local labor”—is a place-based approach to developing models of textile and clothing production that are tailored to the challenges and opportunities that we see in our locality; where we produce and consume within the limits that our local resources allow; where our garments carry with them the ‘life-place’ of their region. [2][3][4] For me, the most significant disruptive potential of the fibershed movement comes from the request it makes of us to reimagine fashion as something defined by, and for, our place and our community, rather than by globalized industry that has nothing to do with us and our homelands.

So a fibershed is more than a geographical landscape; it is a social, economic, and political landscape, too. To harness our local resources to produce anything as sophisticated as a garment of clothing, with the many processes that this involves, demands a network of farmers, growers, mills, manufacturers, and designers as well as advocates, activists, and bloody-minded facilitators who are determined to create a new paradigm for fashion.

I invite you to explore the following farms, farmers, landscapes, and livestock through our eyes as we saw them last winter, and listen to some of these pioneers in their own words.

Listen later this year for a podcast series that we are working on in collaboration with Southeast England Fibreshed and Farmerama Radio that will delve into the stories of some of these farms, and others, in greater depth.

Dark Sky Alpacas

An alpaca breeding and fiber business nestled into the edge of Bodmin Moor in North Cornwall.

The herd going to pasture; alpaca have soft padded feet rather than hooves so they ‘poach’ the land far less—even in wet winters.

Alpaca fiber is hollow—giving it greater thermal capacity than wool, and can also be extremely fine, making it both soft and very warm.

The Suri alpaca produces a famously long, silky fiber with stunning luster that can be tricky to work with but when handled appropriately creates luxurious textiles that rival cashmere in fineness and softness.

Wendy and Tom Scott are new entrant farmers who chose to specialize in breeding the rare Suri alpaca, which makes up less than 10% of the worldwide alpaca population.

Fernhill Farm

A holistic eco-farm atop the Mendip Hills AONB that supplies fleece and yarns to many small artisanal brands.[5]

Jen and Andy selectively breed a large native-breed flock to produce fine fleece as well as 100% pasture-fed meat.

Our native British breeds thrive in our native British weather, which leads them to produce the fine, warm fibers that are capable of producing high-quality yarns and clothing.

The Fernhill philosophy holds no waste at its core; great care is taken to sort and grade each fleece after shearing to ensure that the very most is made of all of it, and all by-products are seen as resources that can somehow be recycled within their farming system.

Jen Hunter is a former Nuffield Farming scholar who is a passionate advocate for wool and together with partner Andy Wear has built an inspirational business for meat and wool products which are now verified regenerative through A Greener World.

Lower Hampen Farm

A 330-acre mixed arable and livestock farm in the Cotswolds AONB.

The Devon Closewool is a dual purpose breed that produces wonderful meat as well as copious amounts of lofty wool.

Clive, together with partner Lydia, are seventh-generation custodians of Lower Hampen farm, which has been farmed by the family for over 220 years.

Lydia processes much of the Closewool fleece herself, washing and dyeing it using homegrown natural dyes.

Raw fleece to be cleaned.

Lydia is passionate about farming with nature, integrating wildlife habitats and regenerative principles into the farm’s system, and honoring the value in all it produces.

Middle Campscott Farm

An atmospheric 90-acre farm on the north Devon coast which for the past few decades has kept one of the UK’s few flocks of triple-purpose sheep.

Lawrence with his mixed flock of British Milk, Friesian, Zwartble, and Shetland sheep.

Specializing early on in colored Shetland fleeces which were uncommercial through mainstream sales avenues at the time, Middle Campscott processed their fiber instead through the Natural Fibre Company and became the first UK producer of organic wool yarns certified by the Soil Association.

Lawrence and his wife Karen were first-generation farmers when they moved to Devon yet provide an inspirational example of a small farm business finding strength in diversity over intensity of production.

The Middle Campscott model relies on making the most of everything the sheep has to offer—meat, fleece, milk, and hides.

Rushlade Wool Company

A Dartmoor family farm, and one of few in the UK producing merino commercially on a small scale.

A chance encounter with merino sheep at the local livestock market led to Rushlade Farm diversifying their traditional hill farm which had previously focused on commercial meat breeds of sheep.

Second generation farmer Jessica Steer and husband Russ developed a fiber side to their traditional sheep farming business in 2017 which continues to grow.

One of the most interesting outcomes of the mixed Rushlade flock is the ‘Dartmoor Merino,’ a Merino/Whiteface Dartmoor crossbreed.

Tamarisk Farm

An organic mixed farm on the Jurassic coast; a unique blend of old and new, traditional and modern.

Second-generation farmer Ellen and her family produce grass-fed organic beef and lamb, free-range eggs from pastured chickens, grains and stoneground flours, as well as yarns and sheepskins from their mixed flock of sheep.

Mother and daughter team Ellen and Leila.

Farming on the coast and on soils prone to water-logging comes with its own set of challenges, leading livestock to be kept indoors for months over the winter to avoid damage to the pasture by ‘poaching.’

Tamarisk’s flock produces a natural rainbow of colors, from white and cream, to fawn, caramel, chocolate, and near-black shades of brown.

Comprising five different native breeds, breeding involves five different rams, here enjoying the panoramic coastal views.

Woodchester House Yarns

Organic yarns and fleece produced exclusively by a flock of Cotswold sheep that graze the Woodchester House estate near Stroud in Gloucestershire.

The Cotswold ‘Lion’ breed is a long-wool breed native to this region, an inquisitive and friendly sheep which is now considered a rare breed.

Tom manages the livestock and the landscape of the estate, optimizing grazing both for the welfare of the flock and the biodiversity of the valley.

The Woodchester House Estate comprises native woodland, old pasture, streams, and springs.

The Cotswold sheep historically produced a fine yarn with a natural luster or sheen that was highly sought after at home and abroad.

Sarah, a textile historian, is working with husband Tom to selectively breed their flock, continually improving the fiber to bring it back into contemporary use.

Notes

[1] See blog post ‘Bioregioning’ by Isabel Carlisle, The Bioregional Learning Centre

[2]“A fibreshed is a geographical landscape that defines and gives boundaries to a natural textile resource base, engendering appreciation, connectivity and sensitivity for the life-giving resources within our homelands.” Rebecca Burgess, Founder, Fibershed . The fibershed movement now comprises nearly 50 regional affiliate initiatives across the world, each working to develop bioregional systems for the production and processing of natural fibres and dyes into textiles and clothing.

[3] A place-based approach to community development examines challenges and opportunities that are specific to the place in question

[4] John Thackera, see https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405872619300012

[5] AONB stands for Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, a conservation designation given to areas of countryside in the UK.

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