Start with your hands. At Field to Fashion, visitors to Derby's Museum of Making can touch real fleece, supplied by British Wool, and find out how it is spun. From that first handful, the exhibition follows raw British fleece to the clothes we wear. It runs until to 3 January 2027.
The show brings together farmers, designers, artists and makers to reveal the people and processes behind wool, from shearing and spinning to contemporary fashion and sustainable design. For Andrew Hogley, CEO of British Wool, that reach is the point. "Wool connects agriculture, craftsmanship and fashion in a way few materials can," he says. "From the moment a fleece is shorn on farm to its transformation into yarn and clothing, it supports rural livelihoods and highly skilled manufacturing across the UK.”
Wool samples investigated by the students of Derby Moor Spencer Academy. Photo: Derby Museums
A visitor at the Field to Fashion exhibition, admiring the John Smedley Uniform Project. Photo: Chris Seddon
Fine art installations and interactive displays sit beside work by graduate artists and local students. Fittingly, the Museum of Making was once a silk mill, and local company John Smedley, knitting in Derbyshire since 1784, anchors the history.
A highlight is the uniform project, first imagined by Abigail Wastie of Thread of Life and Jess Mcguire-Dudley of John Smedley. GCSE textiles students at Derby Moor Spencer Academy took on a live brief: could wool return as the fabric for a school jumper? They traced the wool from Laxton's spinning mill in Bradford to the Smedley factory, working with Wastie and Smedley head designer Pip Jenkins to reach prototype. Mcguire-Dudley calls the programme "a truly immersive education"...
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Image Credits:
Lead: LAM Farm in North Kent Downs. Photo: Joss McKinley
All further images as credited in captions.