The Campaign for Wool, of which His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales is patron, began its third year with a spectacular knit-over of Harvey Nichols' iconic Knightsbridge store – with more than 100 metres of wool.
The wool was donated by H. Dawson, which has supplied wool to clients across the world for more than 120 years and is heavily involved in The Campaign for Wool. The donated wool was crafted into a gigantic 3D spectacle, including a huge ball of yarn that perches neatly on the corner of the store, with accompanying oversized knitting needles.
To launch The Campaign for Wool's 'Wool Week' 2012, Poppy Delevigne officially switched on the lights of the Harvey Nichols wool wrap at a private cocktail event on the evening of October 15 at the Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park, which overlooks Harvey Nichols.
Her Royal Highness the Countess of Wessex joined the event to celebrate the WOOL SCHOOL initiative, which began this year under the Campaign for Wool. The initiative sees fashion, textiles and design students across the country competing to design wool sweaters to be sold in top UK retail stores, including Topshop, Marks & Spencer, Paul Smith, Harvey Nichols, Pringle, DAKS, John Lewis and Jigsaw.
Students designed a wool-rich sweater for the project, and one student per university was selected as the winner with their design put into production with the retail partner. The winning garments will be available in stores to coincide with UK Wool Week.
WOOL SCHOOL has been created to encourage young designers of tomorrow to engage with the UK's favourite natural fibre as they are guided by their paired retailer in a creative production process. Five per cent of WOOL SCHOOL jumper sales will go back into fashion education programmes across the UK.
Wool Week UK 2012 follows the launch of the Campaign for Wool in Korea, France and Norway for 2012.
During the coming six weeks the Campaign will see wool cover the streets of Madrid, be installed for an exhibition in Amsterdam, celebrate the WOOL SCHOOL initiative in Germany, take to the stores of Tokyo and much more.
