ABOUT - Creating Black Sheep value

The "BLACK SHEEP" of Norway

In Norway, there are 12 sheep breeds, of which six are endangered. Several of the breeds have speckled gray, black or brown color shades and the quality of the bottom hairs is different than that of the cover hairs. Norwegian mass producers refuse to use this wool. For them, only Norwegian white sheep apply, since It does not need dyeing, bleaching or other processing. The Norwegian company Varp & Verft thinks differently.

“While nursing my first son I came across a research study called “Valuing Norwegian wool”. Basically, the conclusion was that we are underutilizing a wonderful natural resource at the expense of biodiversity,” says economist and designer Carina Sandsmark Øvestad, who founded the company Varp & Veft with private and government funding in 2013.

Norway Cloth™ Grey Trønder has changed Norwegian wool from mass production to batch production

From shearing to hand grading, spinning and finally weaving & finishing, every element of the company’s Norway Cloth™ Grey Trønder wool collection is produced locally and from start to finish takes many months.

At the 2015 design fair 100% Norway in London, she exhibited the company’s first product series together with textile designer Jon Petterson. They realized that English dealers were interested in the niche product and wanted to collaborate with British architects and use it in public environments.

“We believe in the importance of preserving local manufacturing know-how as well as the lovely, yet longtime neglected, pigmented wool of old breeds of sheep. This is why we source handpicked raw wool from dedicated farmers and process this natural resource into high quality fabrics and finished items such as cushions,” says Øvestad.

In the old days the Norwegian Vikings knew how to best utilize the different wool qualities for the different usages. Each fleece would be hand sorted so that the long, coarse and almost waterproof hair would be used for sails and rugs, while the soft undercoat was spun into a softer yarn used for knitting garments.

Nowadays the Norwegian industry seems to prefer importing homogeneous wool for easier processing, while the wool of the modern white “meat sheep” is exported for the making of durable carpets. As a result, many old Norwegian sheep breeds are vulnerable to extinction.

VARP & VEFT has partnered up with three wool mills, all situated on the west coast of Norway. By joining forces we have been able to make a wool cloth collection from Norway's finest wool fibre: Grey Trønder Sheep, a breed that goes back to the Middel Ages as monks brought merino to the Tautra Monastery. 

MAKER OF FINE CLOTH AND ITEMS, COMMITTED TO CREATING SUPERIOR "BLACK SHEEP" VALUE

Text: The Daily Scandinavian

Local Norwegian craftmanship as featured by SØLV