Christien Meindertsma’s exploration of 3D printed wool represents the latest development in our relationship with wool, a relationship that stretches back for millennia. Felted, spun, knitted and woven, this precious commodity has been used and re-used in ways that respond to the practical, technological, economic and environmental needs of passing generations. Underpinning the Dutch designer’s work is the desire to make the most of wool’s natural properties, and to save it from being wasted – whether raw European wool earmarked for destruction, or discarded wool textiles destined for landfill.
Recycling wool is of course not a new concept. As a mainstay of European textile production until the mid-20th century, wool products have been systematically salvaged and reused for centuries, from second-hand garments and off-cuts to surplus fibres and floor sweepings. Historically, demand for wool often outstripped supply. For many, new wool was too expensive to purchase, leading to a healthy trade in used wool. Marcellus Laroon’s 1688 illustration of a street-trader clutching second-hand clothing demonstrates how commonplace a practice it was to trade and wear used clothing. Indeed, by the 18th century, London’s Rag Fair – a hub of used clothing – was well established at its Rosemary Lane venue.
By the 19th century, the ability to mechanically reprocess and blend used and virgin wool emerged. Shredding, respinning and reweaving the fibres enabled the new to be made from the old, enabling a reworked wool material known as shoddy. In 1858, economist and journalist Edward Baine published a detailed account of England’s wool industry, tracing the formal shoddy trade back to 1813. Describing shoddy as the “refuse of wool collected from mill waste, or made from rags” Baine notes that by 1858 “the use of shoddy has greatly extended”, while extolling the virtues of utilising “materials which were before almost worthless.” Baine advocated for making full use of materials; using that which already exists rather than creating anew, and letting no material go to waste:
It is one of the objects of improvements in the useful arts to give value to that which possessed no value, to utilize refuse, to economize materials, and, as it were, to prolong their existence under different forms to the latest date. The waste swept up from the floor of the cotton mill is made into beautiful paper. The oil washed out of woollen cloth is now extracted from the muddy liquid which formerly ran to waste, and is saved for fresh oleaginous uses. Scraps, shavings, dust, the contents of sewers, are all made valuable. Why, then, should not the wool of the sheep undergo a second manufacture?
Efforts to recycle wool would continue throughout the 20th century as the effects of two world wars spread across Europe. It was after WWI that the term ‘virgin wool’ first emerged as a selling point. Devised as a marketing strategy by the wool industry, ‘virgin wool’ acted as a marker of superior quality, distinguishing new wool garments from those that used shoddy, whose reputation was beginning to wane. In the decades after WWII, garments proudly advertised as using ‘100% virgin wool’ or ‘pure new wool’ proliferated – an overt celebration of new material that is less palatable in the current climate, when so many garments conversely advertise their recycled fibres as a badge of honour.
Historically, end-of-life wool has been put to good use in another, unexpected, way: as fertiliser. Evidence suggests that as early as the 16th century farmers were putting waste materials to use on their fields, such as bones, ashes, malt dust and woollen rags. This practice increased in the following centuries as rapid urban growth and industrialisation triggered the production of more waste. In the 18th century, agriculturist Arthur Young travelled across England surveying farming practices. His 1771 publication The Farmer’s Tour Through the East of England, Vol. 4 describes how woollen rags were used in addition to manures as a ‘beneficial dressing’ on various types of soil, noting their common use around London, whose urban environment acted as a rich source of discarded wool products.
Today, European wool production has greatly diminished. Competing synthetics and softer imported wools have driven down prices, and the infrastructure required to process wool has been replaced. As an unwanted byproduct of the food industry, most European wool is often simply burnt or buried. But with a bit of creativity, this wasted material is finding new applications; within the realm of packaging, sound-proofing, and organic fertilisers, or, as in Christien Meindertsma’s vision, insulation and furniture.
