Late last year, a new project from Canadian label Dana Lee Brown caught my eye. It was a collection of scarves made using wool from an Ontario farm that was refined less than two hours away at Wave Fibre Mill. What struck me was how traceable these scarves were: every element and process could be tracked back to a specific place. The line is not only an embodiment of Dana Lee Brown’s “soil-to-loom” approach, but also the reintroduction of “single-origin knitwear” — an exciting development for the textile obsessives and fashion genpop who have lately started placing a premium on itchy-because-it’s-real knitwear.
“The project was about letting the material guide the outcome,” says Dana Lee of the scarves. Lee connected with the agroecology-focused Black Sheep Farm, operated by Brenda Hsueh, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. The conversation began with their shared Asian-Canadian ancestry and eventually moved onto wool. “That’s when I learned about her deep focus on fiber quality, and her long-term breeding work with naturally dark-colored sheep,” Lee says. The designer was inspired by Hsueh’s commitment to soil health, biodiversity, and social justice, and saw parallels to her own mission for her label.
Lee’s brand has also stayed local and close to the ground. It was founded in 2023 with a commitment to small production. “The first step is making decisions at the fiber level and letting those choices guide everything,” Lee says. “That means thinking about farming practices, fiber type, staple length, color, and spinning method early on, rather than treating fabric as a fixed input. I love the seam character that woven cotton develops when it’s garment dyed, the way wool blooms when washed, or how bast fibers crinkle and relax when they’re line-dried,” Lee explains. The product listing for an alpaca wool vest declares that the wool was grown in upstate New York and loomed in New England before the garment was constructed in Canada.
While Dana Lee Brown might be an extreme example of the interesting, educational places that fashion’s fiber fetish can take us, the brand is far from alone. Designers Evan Kinori and Margaret Howell, for example, use yak wool in their collections. Angora, often used for its natural softness, and Shetland knits, sourced from sheep native to the remote Scottish island, are winter staples, used by brands ranging from Drake’s and J. Crew to Needles and Noah. Then there’s the obvious cashmere bonanza across the market, from Quince to The Row, using wool made from the undercoat of Himalayan sheep that’s become synonymous with softness, warmth, and the specter of quiet luxury.
As the pendulum swings away from synthetics — which have long been overabundant in fashion (to say nothing of the microplastics!) — we’re also seeing brands experiment with newer and more unexpected fibers. Swedish label Rubato has gained a reputation for its knitwear, making cable knits from a blend of angora and Geelong lambswool and creating crewnecks from pure camel hair — one of the brand’s core materials. “It has the hand of vintage cashmere, soft and full and not as flimsy or fragile as modern cashmere,” says Oliver Dannefalk, who co-founded Rubato in 2018. “The durability is also superior. It has great heat retention and breathability and an old-school air of nonchalance."
And at a time when character and patina are decidedly in — see: those splattered Prada sleeves — the way in which natural fibers change is definitely part of the appeal. &Daughter, for example, was founded to build on generations of knitting expertise passed down through co-founder Buffy Reid’s family. To carry this on, the brand places its Scottish and Irish wool front and center. “It is an incredibly intelligent fiber,” Reid says. “Thermodynamic by nature, it helps keep you warm when it’s cold and cool when the temperatures rise. Wool has natural stain-resistant properties, softens with wear, and can be reconditioned through washing and pressing.”
While all three designers and makers extol the aesthetic and functional benefits of natural fibers, there are also broader considerations. “From a stewardship perspective, natural fibers are biodegradable, don’t shed microplastics, and, when farmed thoughtfully, can have positive impacts on soil, ecosystems, and people,” Lee says. Although natural fiber knitwear can be fussier to take care of, there’s an undeniable emotional connection that comes with understanding the processes involved in each item, whether it comes from a Tibetan goat or has been made using fresh Scottish water. Personally, I think that’s worth a lot more than the cheap uniformity and ease of synthetic fabrics.
But dealing with natural fibers is still relatively niche work. As the fashion industry, and the world at large, has embraced synthetic fabrics, it’s become harder to source and work with these materials. One drawback is the cost. “In localized models like mine, there’s also a reliance on fragile infrastructure,” Lee says. In working with Wave Fibre Mill, Lee is effectively spotlighting a part of the supply chain that has been hollowed out over generations.
“The core issue is how many specialized steps it takes to turn raw fiber into fabric and how few small or regional places are left that can do each step,” Lee says. Those steps begin with the growers and include cleaning, spinning, and weaving. “There might be only one mill in a region that can spin a certain kind of yarn, or one facility willing to process small, unusual fiber lots,” Lee says. When mills or processors close, a link in the chain is broken, the technical expertise, hands-on knowledge and equipment often lost forever.
For &Daughter, collaboration with local mills is critical. In our conversation, Reid spotlighted a particular mill based on the edge of a loch in rural Scotland. “The purity of the water is integral to the process, and its spinners have been working with wool and cashmere since the 1800s,” she says. “This is a true partnership, the finest yarn combined with generations of expertise.”
In fact, the further you go down the natural fiber rabbithole, the broader the implications. The use of non-commodity fibers, which are made using small flocks, regional wools, and heritage breeds, can be finicky but important work amid the broader context of textile production. Using them can encourage genetic diversity among farm animals and support niche farming systems in specific places and climates. “When these fibers disappear, it’s not just a material loss,” Lee says. “It’s a loss of knowledge, livelihoods, and relationships that are bonded to particular places.”
It isn’t always easy to use, or wear, natural fibers. But that’s partly the point. As a consumer, it’s refreshing to see brands like Dana Lee Brown, &Daughter, and Rubato celebrate these imperfections and the human processes behind them. Maybe we should all know a bit more about the fabrics we wear, their origins, and their histories — to grow more curious about the very real world our clothes are derived from. It was this curiosity that inspired Lee herself. “It began to feel strange to have no real relationship to the fiber itself,” Lee says. “It’s a bit like being a chef who never engages with their ingredients.”
