A BITTER cold snap in the northern hemisphere has consumers once again reaching for a wooly garment, and has fashion buyers heralding the re-birth of the natural fibre despite recession woes still hanging in the air.
By the end of last year, there were signs of growing demand for woollen suits and coats – both markets that had been hit hard by the credit crunch.
Australian Wool Innovation’s European regional manager, Nagy Bensid, said the British Retail Consortium had reported its strongest December year-on-year sales in more than five years, with total sales up six per cent against 1.4pc the year before.
“The extreme cold snap did have an impact on the UK high street; menswear sales outperformed those of womenswear in December with coats and suits a month the top sellers,” she said.
“Of course knitwear sales benefited from the cold weather along with women’s accessories, tights and leggings.”
The United Kingdom had the highest per capita consumption of Australian wool apparel products last year, followed by Japan, Italy, South Korea, Germany and Australia.
The Australian wool marketing and research peak body is also reporting “high volumes” of woollen knitwear in New York.
Communication leading up to the prestigious Pitti Filati Italian spinners expo in Florence next week also suggests wool demand is on the up.
“Cold winters are convincing people to buy wool again,” Stefano Borsini, president of Italian processing giant, Manifattura Igea, told Womenswear Daily.
Similarly, Borgosesia-based wool and cashmere spinner Lora Festa said it would focus on wool rather than cashmere for spring 2011.
“Wool is still very important and is the reason we are striving to create lightweight wool,” Mr Bernardia said.
He said woollen sales in Europe had improved compared to a few years ago; in particular, the UK and France were “performing well”.
At the Ermenegildo Zegna Milan Fashion Week Runway Show this month it was also wool wool wool catching the eyes of the world’s fashionistas.
Zegna creative director Alessandro Sartori is reporting widespread use of wool blends in its centenary winter-autumn collection, including a limited edition collection to be introduced in May featuring the 'Centennial Vellus Aureum', a superfine wool fabric that was awarded the definition of most precious material in the world.
AWI chief executive Brenda McGahan this week used the positive forecast in wool demand to emphasise that its product development strategy worked.
"This prediction is a virtual playback of our knitwear strategy over the past year," she said in a statement.
However, the hangover of the global financial crises of lackluster spending on luxury products remains a challenge for the Australian wool industry, with sales figures from the United States suggesting December ‘09 trade trading was “above expectation”.
The AWEX Eastern Market Indicator closed at 942 cents a kilogram last Friday, up 198c/kg dearer compared to 12 months prior.
The low supply of Australian wool has contributed to a rise in the price of wool this season, which the Australian Wool Production Forecasting Committee forecasts will be 330mkg greasy this season, down from 363mkg last year.
With supply estimated by the forecasting committee to remain at its low level until the end of 2010, questions over the long-term sustainability of the market continue to cloud the industry.
Despite the challenges, Rabobank senior rural manager, Michael White, said the outlook for the wool industry was good as demand was set to grow.
“Not withstanding further demand shock we expect Eastern Market Indicator to rise above the five-year average of 800 cents a kilogram,” he said.
“As the recovery in the global economy gathers pace – although more gradual in developed economies – we expect that the desirable nature of woolen garments will remain, this should support an improving global outlook for wool.”
However, for ultra fine wool grower Danny Picker, Hillcreston Park, Biga, NSW, the celebrations over a wool revival are far from here, noting that the finer end of the market still needed to triple its price for his counterparts to be making a return.
Changes in the Average AWEX Micron Price Guides (MPGs) for Merino wools varied from 0.0 per cent (19.0 microns) to +3.3pc (16.5 microns) last week.
Average MPGs were up by 44cents a kilogram clean for 16.5 microns, by 21cents for 17.5 microns, unchanged for 19.0 microns and up by 15-20 cents clean for 20-24 microns.
Oddments continued their upward movement with the average AWEX Merino Cardings MPG up by 17¢ (+2.7pc).
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