Inside the Great British Wool Revival: How the UK’s ‘farm-to-fashion’ summit aims to rebuild a broken fibre economy

British wool, despite a history spanning over 2,000 years, has been facing a perception problem. The raw material, once considered a definitive factor in shaping the UK’s economy, with roots in rural tradition, has in the modern day been regularly dismissed as a low-value, ‘throwaway’ product. Further structural complexities spanning misidentification to lack of production knowledge have created barriers in restoring this indigenous material to its former glory.

However, as conversations surrounding onshoring and localisation evolve, a new dynamic is emerging. The shift is being driven by organisations like the Great British Wool Revival (GBWR), a Fashion Roundtable initiative focused on connecting farmers directly to designers. Ahead of its inaugural summit, to be held May 20 to 21, we take a deep dive into the foundations of this revival and how dialogue surrounding British wool is unfolding.

Wool: Backbone to barren

The mind behind GBWR, Tamara Cincik, founder of the Fashion Roundtable and a member of the UK Trade and Business Commission, wanted to tackle British fashion’s supply issues head on. Having worked between fashion and parliament for much of her career, Cincik began to question the lack of understanding from policymakers over the worth of the UK’s fashion and textile production industry, despite tenacious lobbying by related organisations.

Her specific focus on wool derived during negotiations for the UK-Australia trade agreement, an important deal in a post-Brexit landscape, albeit a one that would inevitably impact British sheep farmers. What became clear to Cincik was not only the disparity in animal welfare between Britain and Australia, but also the international perspective of wool as a waste product–something that is also reflected in EPR regulations emerging in the EU.

“This just seemed insane,” Cincik exclaimed, when speaking to FashionUnited. “Historically, the backbone of our economy in [the UK] was wool. The very product which had funded our capitalist system in medieval times was now considered a waste product. The farmers were paying more to shear the sheep than they made on the wool. When we looked more closely, the more we realised that there was a complete gap in the system.”

In fact, Cincik continued, the whole value chain across the UK was broken. It was from this observation that the Fashion Roundtable was born. Prior to the launch of the think-tank and change agency, Cincik spent around two years lobbying for support, eventually finding a solid partner in the King’s Foundation–formerly the Prince’s Foundation–an educational charity known for, among other things, its Sustainable Markets Initiative.

The Fashion Roundtable team has since worked with the foundation on projects such as the Modern Artisans Collection, part of a collaboration with YNAP, the most recent of which was unveiled at the foundation’s Scottish headquarters, Dumfries House, last year. The 13-piece collection, made over the course of a six-month intensive training programme, was the project’s first carbon neutral line, and has since seen a lot of traction.

The fibre sovereignty conversation

On a broader scale, talk of onshoring and nearshoring has escalated interest in homegrown production and supply chain. Events like Leicester Made & Regions, which took place last month, are uplifting this shift. Fashion Enter CEO, Jenny Holloway, told FashionUnited prior to the event that there had been a dramatic uptick in curiosity on the back of highly pressurised geopolitical and macroeconomic turbulence.

What has materialised is a widening number of brands and retailers seemingly turning to local manufacturing communities, like those of Leicester, in the search for alternative, homegrown production. For market leaders, the battle here has been reviving the somewhat damaged reputation of cities and factories marred by allegations of labour abuses. At the same time, a need for solid commitment to orders is also imperative.

In regards to the latter, a similar challenge is being faced in wool. Cincik noted a disconnect in an industry structured in a way that hasn’t fully motivated a return to local supply chains. From education platforms promoting export materials like merino wool to negative perceptions towards the material–a scratchy waste product–demoralising meat farmers in including the product in their offering, the current format was hard for Cincik to wrap her head around.

“I was sick of the UK being ‘dumbed down’, I think it has a lot to offer,” she said. “It starts with the fibre sovereignty conversation, which the fashion industry has yet to wholeheartedly adopt. It’s beyond just ensuring where your textile is coming from. There’s an interesting coalescence of regenerative practice and that farm-to-fashion value chain, which I find personally very exciting.”

So, what is the Great British Wool Revival?

The solution for Cincik lies with the Great British Wool Revival (GBWR), an organisation founded in 2024 on the mission of reconnecting British farmers with designers, and enhancing the value, visibility, and traceability of local wool. The platform serves as an open-source tool and network to back sustainable, onshore supply chains and enable access to fair prices for farmers.

“What I wanted to do was map the broken system, because I don’t believe you can fix something if you don’t know where it’s broken,” Cincik explained. “You must make it accessible so that more and more people are able to work across the value chain, from the farmer to the mill to the spinner to the dyer to the fashion brand.”

Key features of the programme include its core digital mapping system, allowing users to locate nearby farmers, graders, spinners, and manufacturers; the facilitation of ‘farm-to-fabric’ collaborations; educational resources and initiatives, such as the sustainable school uniform projects; and industry events, namely the two-day summit taking place this month.

Digital mapping is the fundamental essence of the organisation’s efforts, enabling those using the platform to engage with suppliers and build their own networks. “It’s a fantastic tool for people to plug the gap. I don’t think that any other organisation within this space has been going back to where fibre comes from and has looked at what we can do to support building it into the value chain,” Cincik explained. She points to brands like Harris Tweed–which legally has to work with sheep from their islands–and Herd–a luxury label that breeds its own sheep–as solid examples of successful wool-based grow-to-wear producers.

Educating farmers, particularly those in the meat industry, on developing a dual income system is a key step in encouraging engagement with the fashion industry. “I would like to see farmers making as much money out of wool as they are out of meat,” Cincik explained, elaborating on the scope of opportunities in wool applications, specifically the durability of Aran knit; a womenswear shift on Savile Row; and the adoption of British fibres in response to demand for British-made products. “I want to see support for the regenerative ecosystem that moves beyond circularity into something more supportive of land and provenance,” Cincik added.

In order to ensure longevity, student education was also acknowledged by Cincik as the root of future development. Collaborative projects with organisations like Instituto Marangoni, with which GBWR recently held a seminar series, immerse emerging knitwear designers and future buyers into the British wool landscape and all of its technical intricacies, down to the varying tensions of a knitting machine. Crucially, it is these individuals who will influence the strength of the industry, determining its worth and investing into it as they move further into their careers.

Cincik’s ability to sense a shift in the landscape was chalked down to a gut feeling, yet she recognises that when first venturing into this field, she encountered many unexpected facets. “Wool is a political issue,” she said. “I had no idea when I got into it. I was quite naive to that, but maybe that naivety helped. I think it is a comment on a revaluing of our rural, beautiful landscape here in the UK and our rural economy.”

Wool’s revival goes hand-in-hand with the growing restoration of heritage, tradition, and craftsmanship among the local fashion industry. Inherently British brands, like Burberry and Mulberry, had at one time shied away from their respective roots, yet are now once again leaning on them as part of major turnaround strategies. A revocation of overtly globalised identities on the back of periods of financial deterioration has taken shape in campaigns like Mulberry’s ‘Rooted in Craft’, a documentation of craftsmen behind the products.

Cincik hopes this movement will extend further into wool, and encourages British brands to pursue collaborations through organisations like GBWR and beyond. “I would like to see more brands to not just offer capsule collections with British wool, but really interrogate what we offer at the GBWR, working with us, working with the wool. Because each of those individual breeds tells a different story. That’s a place-based history, and it’s very poetic.”

Rural tensions and rising prices

Since the GBWR’s inception, there has already been a slight, or in some ways significant, positive trajectory. According to British Wool, as of November 4, 2025, wool achieved the highest average price for nine years, with the index up 27 percent in the two months prior. The average auction price rose from one pound per kilogram in the season before to 1.21 pounds per kilogram. The organisation’s CEO, Andrew Hogley, said all core wool types were trading at “significantly higher levels than last season”. “If the current trends continue, our members can expect stronger returns in the year ahead,” he added.

Projects by Innovate UK have had a hand in boosting engagement. From 2022 to 2024, the British innovation agency led a project that involved the establishment of the Wool Innovation Community, with the goal of reviving the overlooked potential of UK wool. A group of around 20 to 30 key industry leaders were brought together to identify challenges and potential solutions, informing an action plan which had been described as the first piece of work that wholly encapsulated the farmer-to-end process.

Among Innovate UK’s initiatives were the facilitation of cross-industry collaborations, evident in the Wool Insulation Wales–now Wool Technologies–programme. The team also helped companies align projects with broader funding opportunities, helping to get them off the ground. According to the team, at the project’s conclusion there was an increased demand for wool, contributing to the rising prices.

The path has been a challenging one to tread, particularly amid heightened tension and backlash towards political transitions. Farmer sentiments have been voiced in widespread protests over recent years, from tractor convoys to “go-slow” demonstrations that continued into early 2026. Their grievances are largely centred on budget changes to agricultural inheritance tax that, while scaled back before implementation in April 2026, have caused concerns over food security and family livelihoods.

Farmers were rightly concerned about these issues, Cincik notes, adding that there are a lot of similar challenges across many parts of British entrepreneurship. Despite the rise in wool prices, producing the material still doesn’t bring in a sizable cash flow unless you’re breeding sheep like the Bluefaced Leicester or others aimed specifically at knitwear, she points out, “but it is growing and growing and growing”.

“There is still a long way to go,” Cincik adds, particularly in scalable adoption by British brands in the luxury sector. “Marrying British style with British made with British fibres is what we are working on. British style is seeing a renaissance, it’s just making sure that British fibres are, too.”

The summit: a ‘clip to consumer’ experience

Held at Dumfries House and hosted in collaboration with The King’s Foundation, the Great British Wool Revival Summit is a tangible response to this mission. The event has been marketed as the first to spotlight ‘farm to fashion’, where British farmers, manufacturers, designers, brands and innovators will come together for a ‘clip to consumer’ experience. Keynote speakers underscore the programme, led by Make it British founder, Kate Hills, who will be joined on stage by a number of yet to be confirmed industry leaders.

Over the course of two days–one dedicated to education, the other to industry–panels, roundtables, and showcases presenting British wool products will be accessible to attendees. Tabletop sessions, workshops, and on-site farmyard demonstrations will introduce interactive elements, while a farmer-to-maker matchmaking event will physically extend GBWR’s digital mapping system.

Cincik said the focus of this inaugural edition will not necessarily be on announcing established policy. Instead, “what we’re going to be doing is celebrating and showcasing”, she explained. Harriet Fletcher-Gilhuys, textiles researcher for the Fashion Roundtable and consultant at The King’s Foundation, added that the summit was “about having an honest, farmer-focused conversation about barriers”, from policy and logistics to transport and costs. “And importantly, we want tangible outcomes–clear action points at the end,” she continued.

Themes such as luxury and slow crafts, material innovation, cultural futures, and regenerative systems are expected to be addressed, with a special focus on wool’s role in biodiversity, soil health, and rural resilience. Involving consumers in the conversation was also imperative to organisers. The general public can purchase tickets for the education-portion of the event. “The consumer is key–if they’re not ready to engage, then the system won’t shift,” Fletcher-Gilhuys noted.

From wool to beyond

“The aim is for the event to influence thought-provoking, ongoing conversation—not stand as a one-off event,” Fletcher-Gilhuys stated, hinting that more editions could be on the horizon. With an abundance of topics to be addressed, the summit’s continuation does seem feasible. The face of the luxury sector, for example, is continuously changing, becoming more about provenance amid consumers favouring subtle sustainability communication and companies justly embracing British culture.

Cincik added: “In a saturated fast fashion market, that lends weight to the product. The story about wool is within that–it isn’t always the screaming headline, it’s just within the product. Leaning into heritage, culture, and narrative, and embedding British wool–making it easier for designers to use it–that’s proof that it sells.”

Whether Cincik will extend her efforts to other British-produced raw materials remains a question mark, for now. Other areas of the indigenous fibre sector, such as leather, are also in need of a revamp, but she doesn’t see them to be as easily solvable as wool. Flax and hemp, for example, are being increasingly adopted as a material alternative by fledgling farms, particularly among those looking to avoid rising supply chain costs and exploitative practices in other producing regions. “It just needs the infrastructure and the determination to get there,” Cincik said.

When it comes to proof of concept for other fibres, Cincik said she is interested in the regenerative fashion movement as a whole, and how that specifically can be built in with regenerative agriculture. “I think this is a really exciting time in terms of pride in this country,” she stated. However, wool, with its already solid positioning and its realistic scalability, will, for now, remain in focus.