Sheep wool, natural heritage and sustainable fiber.

Its origins, production processes and the industrial revolution.

Humans domesticated sheep at least 9,000 years ago. In fact, they are the first animals to be domesticated, along with dogs. The ancestors of today's sheep are the Asian mouflons of Mesopotamia. Ancient sheep were more like goats than the soft-fleeced specimens we know today. From Asia, nomadic tribes brought sheep to Europe. Over the centuries, humans developed selective breeding, leaving the best specimens for breeding and the rest for food.

Wool fibers fall into the category of natural, animal-derived fibers, just like silk. Wool fiber filaments are shorter than those of other natural fibers, such as linen, and can average up to 12 cm in length. Fiber thickness is measured in microns and is directly related to the quality and softness of the final fabric.  Sheep traditionally have different shades of wool, including shades of white, gray, and brown. However, with the industrialization of this fiber, the whitest fibers were selected because they allowed for better dyeing.

Selective crossbreeding of sheep has resulted in a number of fine breeds: Corriedale, dual-purpose Merino, Suffolk, and Romney Marsh. As for fiber processing, whether carried out by hand or industrially, the first step is shearing the sheep, followed by the selection and grading of the fleeces. Depending on the area of ​​the animal's body where the wool fibers come from, they will vary in length and thickness. Once this selection is complete, the wool is washed, a process in which it loses about 15% of its initial weight, which is soil and tallow. It is then dried and separated according to its quality and purpose into carded wool and worsted wool. The tallow, or in other words, the fat in wool, is called lanolin and is used to make a number of derived products.

Once again, the wool is selected for subsequent carding or spinning. The highest quality wool is left to be spun and woven into fine clothing textiles. Carded wool is used to make thicker textiles such as blankets, rugs, and upholstery. In terms of the production process, and in simplified terms, carded wool is spun, drawn, and wound, while worsted wool is combed, separated, stretched, and pressed. The type of yarn used depends on the quality of the wool, with merino wool being the finest and most highly valued on the market.

The Industrial Revolution not only transformed production processes but also established new social, cultural, and economic dynamics that persist to this day. Without the wool culture that Europeans developed during the Middle Ages and before cotton from the colonies fed the new machinery, wool was the protagonist of the first factories, in that noisy, lint-filled environment with damp floors. For centuries, wool was the queen of natural fibers. Only to be displaced by cotton and then, towards the mid-20th century, by the widespread use of synthetic fibers, which displaced it, especially in the home textiles segment.

Wool in Chile: history and local culture.

The first flock of sheep to arrive in the country was imported by the Spanish during the 16th century. This breed of sheep is known as Criollas and is found throughout the country, especially from the central region to the south. The Merino sheep that arrived in Patagonia later were originally from Spain, but were introduced by the English during the 18th century and imported from the Falkland Islands.

The development of wool spinning and weaving is especially notable culturally on the island of Chiloé. After centuries of evolution, the Chiloé sheep is recognized as a breed in its own right. Highly valued for its meat, but also for its hair, which has been creatively worked by local women on large looms located inside homes in various locations, allowing for an aesthetic flourishing that is part of traditional Chiloé culture.

Wool played a key role in Chile's nascent textile industrialization. From the mid-19th century onward, the first two textile factories that can be considered modern in the country produced wool cloth. The El Salto Textile Factory, located in Conchalí, was founded by the state itself in 1850 to meet the needs of the army and other government institutions. The second was established in 1865 in an old mill in Tomé by Guillermo Délano Gibson, whose story goes that he traveled to California, United States, and exchanged a shipment of wheat for 24 looms. Bellavista Tomé remains the most important cloth factory in the country, and it would not be unreasonable to point out that it is the most important in South America. Furthermore, the establishment of Bellavista Tomé paved the way for two other important factories in the city: the national cloth company Oveja and the Italian-American cloth factory, better known as FIAP. The development of the wool industry in Chile was only overshadowed by the cotton industry, which was established in the capital with state funding and focused directly on the domestic market towards the mid-20th century.

An ancestral fiber that looks to the future.

Today, the wool industry is seeking to establish itself at the center of the conversation surrounding sustainability in fashion. But... Is wool sustainable? My humble opinion is that it is. It's true that, like other natural fibers, wool requires many resources for its production: animals, land, water, care, etc.  However, in the garment's use phase, wool is the winner in terms of sustainability compared to all other fibers. First, because it's known that garments made from this animal fiber are the ones that stay in people's closets the longest and require the least amount of washing. In other words, it rarely needs to be washed and doesn't need to be tumble-dried, so energy consumption during this phase is very low. Other advantages are that it's biodegradable, flame-resistant, recyclable, and hypoallergenic. We can look from the present to a future that doesn't have to be distant—in fact, it isn't—because our wool history is still recent, we have abundant resources, and a little help from new technological processes that can enhance its manufacture in multiple new products, such as sports textiles. Our beloved wool can return in all its glory and occupy the podium it deserves among the oldest and noblest textile fibers, renewing itself to continue providing us with warmth and shelter for centuries to come.