Woolmark teams up with top London fashion designers

In addition, to the collaboration with Savile Row for the presentation of The English Gentleman at Lord’s Cricket Ground, involving 100 models to create tableaux around the venue, expressing the perfect British elegance inspired by cricket, The Woolmark Company has strongly promoted wool teaming up with some of the best designers of London.

Focus of the initiatives at London Collections: Men has been Cool Wool, with the intention to unveil wool’s potentials in summer and educate consumers and industry to choose wool as the perfect natural fibre for the warmer months, in virtue of its breathability, temperature management, elasticity, performance, fineness and drape.

For the SS14 season, Cool Wool has been showcased and its natural performance qualities will be the focus for the on-going collaborations with Richard Nicoll, Richard James and E Tautz, along with new collaborations with Jonathan Saunders (extending the relationship into menswear), Christopher Raeburn and Lou Dalton.

These six prestigious and highly appreciated UK menswear designers promoted Cool Wool through their SS14 Collections each expressing their own vision and interpretation of the fibre.

Lou Dalton has been working closely with Yorkshire mills to source fabrics for her collection: "Coming from a tailoring background the use of wool in some form has always been a big part of my collections. For SS14 using Cool Wool was a given, choosing to put what is often on the interior as the exterior this time worked so well with the lightness of cloth and the Cool Wool aesthetic".

The designer visited weavers from the Cool Wool guild in Yorkshire including Clissold, Luxury Fabrics and Bulmer and Lumb to make her final fabric selections and was also exposed to the importance and variety of finishes that can be imparted on fabrics to change their appearance and improve Cool Wool properties by WT Johnson.

Richard Nicoll gave a new twist to wool thinking of it in new, disguised versions. For his SS14 men’s collection, Richard Nicoll used Cool Wool fabric to create garments with a mix of classic yet modern tailoring, an updated twist on the 1980s Cerruti suit style.

''Merino wool is an important aspect of my collections,” the designer said, “as it anchors the collections with a modern elegance and authenticity and brings a complementary contrast to the more casual pieces to create a cool mashed and eclectic definition of modern style.''

Richard James showcased unstructured and unlined precision cut tailoring in super lightweight fabrics inspired by a colour-drenched fading summer’s day.

Fine worsted Cool Wool fabrics feature prominently throughout tailoring and casual wear with beautifully natural flax and silk wool mixes adding subtle texture and form. Key lightweight wool fabrics include Ink Blue 130’s high twist mesh and vivid turquoise wool with natural stretch.