The Wool Lab helps build interest in wool
The Wool Lab is a premier sourcing guide to the world’s best commercially available wool fabrics and yarns. Since its inaugural edition 13 years ago, it has become an important tool for the global textile industry and helps support the demand for Australian wool globally.
The Wool Lab is a sourcing guide for designers and brands that contains swatches of a selection of the most innovative and quality wool fabrics, yarns and processes commercially available on the market from the best spinners, knitters and weavers in the world.
“For each of the Autumn/Winter and the Spring/Summer seasons, we reach out to The Woolmark Company’s global supply chain network to source their latest fabric and yarn developments,” explained AWI General Manager, Processing Innovation & Education Extension, Julie Davies.
“With these, we curate a sourcing guide with inspirational images and a selection of the best swatches that can then be ordered by designers and buyers directly from the manufacturers through The Wool Lab. By providing this service, we are helping to inspire brands’ material strategies and forge strong relationships within the supply chain, thereby supporting the demand for wool.”
Brands and retail buying teams viewing wool swatches in The Wool Lab.
From the two editions of The Wool Lab in the 2023/24 financial year, there were 12,630 requests for swatches with 393 supply chain partners contributing fabrics to the collections.
The latest edition of The Wool Lab, which was launched at the end of June, contains swatches for the northern hemisphere’s Autumn/Winter 2025/26 retail season and are grouped into five theme books that reflect some of the growing market opportunities for wool – see below.
Physical editions and swatches of The Wool Lab form the foundation of what The Woolmark Company presents to brands and retail buying teams at trade shows and its wool development centres, educational seminars, and directly in one-on-one viewings.
There is also a digital version of The Wool Lab that anyone including woolgrowers can view on the Woolmark website – see box below.
The Wool Lab Digital
The Wool Lab Digital is the online version of the respected wool fabric and yarn sourcing guide. Although the physical editions of The Wool Lab remain popular, The Wool Lab Digital was launched in 2021 by The Woolmark Company in response to the evolving needs of today’s market environment and to extend the sourcing guide’s reach.
While the structure and functionality of The Wool Lab has been adapted digitally, the core of The Wool Lab Digital remains the same, providing a digital showcase of swatches from wool fabric and yarn suppliers, for designers and buyers to browse and source their own samples.
The Wool Lab Digital is freely accessible to fashion and textile industry professionals in a dedicated area of woolmark.com. By simply registering (for free), users are able to browse the sourcing guide’s themes and swatches – and choose a selection of wool fabrics and yarns in which they are interested for their upcoming collections.
Through the online platform, they can then contact the suppliers of their favourite swatches, anywhere in the world, to source samples and do business.
More information: www.woolmark.com/the-wool-lab
Example swatches from the latest edition of The Wool Lab
The latest edition of The Wool Lab comprises a massive 449 swatches, categorised into a collection of five themes that reflect the diverse applications that wool can be used in the current textile and fashion landscape to generate business opportunities for the industry.
Below are just two example swatches from each of the five themes that illustrate the versatility of wool.
