Colour, Style Variety And All From Wool

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 237, 6 October 1945, Page 8

Colour, Style Variety And All From Wool

Special to the Auckland Star

By DOUGLAS BRASS

MELBOURNE, Oct. 1. Light, woollen fabrics, as gentle to the skin as any silk or rayon . . . Colourful woollen fabrics, finely printed, shrinkresistant and creaseless .. . Bright woollen furnishing materials, moth-proof and elegant . . . Wool at its finest, its most stylish, its most varied, and its cheapest. . . Wool that can hold its own in the coming Battle of the Textiles, or win that battle in the end. Wool that can keep our national economy steady in the turmoil ahead . . .

THAT is the sort of wool we want. And that, if farmer and manufacturer work well with scientist, is the sort of wool we can have. Some of it we have now—enough, though most notably in sample lengths from other countries, to show us what we can accomplish, given the will and the initiative. Take, for example, the new lightweight, all-wool fabric developed at* Leeds University—an unshrinkable, gossamer-thin cloth which a woman correspondent in England said she would wear in preference to artificial silk or rayon. Made It Versatile This stuff weighs lioz a yard, takes colour perfectly, and refuses to be crushed. It is said to be just the thing for fine underclothes, evening gowns and scarves. It is woven with one woollen thread to two threads of fibre made from seaweed. After weaving it is passed through a bath which dissolves the seaweed, leaving a fine cloth of pure wool. It is the sort of material which, if adapted by our factories here, would please a million women and profit a hundred thousand workers. Wool doesn't demand to be made up in the form of heavy, thick underpants of the type that grandfather wore. No longer need it have the •disadvantages and stuffiness that once were associated with it. Science and new manufacturing methods have made it versatile. And its natural healthful properties are, apparently, not affected by its versatility. The Czechs before the war, using the wool they bought from us, showed us how to make it up in light floral fabrics for summer wear —as attractive in every way as anything a woman might see in a store's spring window.

>the production of fine cloth, are turning out lightweight woollen fabrics for women's summer suits— shrink-resistant material of excellent quality, comparable in texture to a linen. Wool, is no longer an inevitable shrinker. At least three anti-shrink-age processes are in operation here and abroad. One of them is a wholly Australian process, developed in a Sydney laboratory by Australian research workers. Another, now regularly used by several knitting mills in Victoria, has drawn tributes such as this from leading retail stores:— "We believe that Australians should wear wool for health's sake and for the sake of the wool industry, which is Australia's greatest heritage, and we believe that the process will help materially toward a greater consumption of wool in Australia and throughout the' world." As woollen factories are able to emerge from the welter of wartime production, and adapt themselves to the new demands and new markets, the shrink-resistance treatment of woollen garment? will become more general. Fine Fabric Class Then there is the moth-proofing— the salesman's answer to the housewife, seeking furnishings, who is anxious about wool. Wool mothproofing is said to be the simplest of processes, associated, without complications, with the dyeing. Wool, then, will be equipped to compete in many fields which in the past have been closed to it. In the hands of scientists, and manufacturers who are willing to adapt the scientists' discoveries, it should be able to do most things desired of it by industry and public.

And some Australian factories, even now, in spite of wartime restrictions, which have discouraged

But whether in its competition it lags behind, largely in the underpants stage, when it could be prominent in the fine fabrics class, is in great part a matter for the consumer.

F«m the FUTURE

> Encouragement of the consumer to demand better and finer woollens is one of the big jobs now being undertaken by the Australian Wool Boaud, in co-operation with other Empire wool promotion movements. The board is endowed financially as it has never been before —from the wool promotion levy of 2/ a bale on production. Its current year's Australian budget is £39,000. A Director of Wool Promotion is soon to be appointed, and the staff is to be increased in other ways. Recognising the importance to the market of both constant and changing fashion demands, the hoard intends to pay special attention to women's requirements. It will organise fashion parades and displays and keep all developments with woollen fabrics close to the attention of stores, designers, and fashion publicists. The board will take the wool story into the schools, supplying them with films, books and pamphlets on all aspects of the industry. It has already made a grant of £2500 for the purchase of hand looms for the schools. It will expand its educative work with the farmers and gi-owers. Three

;> films on the control of sheep diseases have already been prepared and shown in country centres through the hoard's touring information van. The results of industrial research work, now gaining momentum under a widely organised scheme, will he brought constantly to the attention of manufacturers. Economy At Stake Right through the piece, from the farm to the retail store, the Wool Board will do its best to improve the product and expand the market. Its theme will be that wool is the finest textile fibre, that it has "the performance of a Rolls Royce and the versatility of a jeep." In a country which produces one quarter of the world's wool, it is a cause which should have wholehearted public support. It will—when the fine woollen fabrics come rolling out of the mills in their millions of square yards. In the meantime, let the Wool Board and the manufacturers get going with all the will and drive they possess. For a big part of the Australian economy is at stake.