Feel the Green – Milan
Feel the Yarn launched their first ‘Feel the Green’ event during Milan fashion week which was a combination of B2B (spinners meeting their customers), 6 panel discussions, a trend area, and a student fashion installation.
The theme was - Sustainability, creativity, and the integrated character of the Italian knitwear supply chain – a first of this nature within a single event!
The panel discussions covered:
People
Planet
Cycle
Chemical
Materials
Traceability
Mohair South Africa was part of the Materials panel which focused on the importance of sustainable policies when sourcing raw materials in the fashion industry.
We shared the South African Mohair journey since 2018 to date where we have 71% of the mohair clip in 2022 being RMS certified. The audience wanted to know what plans are in place to get the balance of the clip certified.
The Oritain project was very well received especially with the next step – mohair being collected from the MET partners as a trial to see if mohair can be traced back to the farm where it is sourced.
Our parting message to the audience was:
We are in a relationship with those that work with and use our mohair fibre. While RMS is a standard that has been implemented and is monitored, our industry is in a long-term relationship with brands, so we invited these brands to visit us, to meet our farmers, to see for themselves, and for our farmers to meet the brands and to get a sense of who these folks are. Only then will we have a platform that cements the value chain (its all about context and understanding) and trust!
