MSA partner with ‘Feel the Yarn’ (FTY) in New York

Italy is a major destination for our mohair tops and the Italian spinners, supply these mohair yarns to brands around the world. Thanks to our visit with the EU-SA Partnership tour in May 2022 we learnt of the ‘Feel the Yarn’ organisation. They are the marketing arm for a collective of Italian yarn spinners and 2x knitters. They travel the world hosting small buying events where they meet the sourcing teams from various brands and offer the new collections of the Italian Spinners. In this case it was the SS24.  

New York – ‘Feel the Yarn’ 15 and 16 February

Some US brands have not come back to using mohair at all in their collections or not the same volumes as before. The FTY New York event, offered the ideal platform for us to engage with the brands in a small and beautiful space. We learnt that the sourcing teams love mohair because of what it brings to the collections and their designs, however the senior managers, directors, and company owners are reluctant to include mohair in their collections because of the risk of PETA.

 We managed to have plenty of good conversations with brands with regards to sustainability and traceability within the mohair industry and we gave them lots of information and materials on why they should use mohair!!! They were assured that we are here for them.

In doing store visits we saw that some brands are using some mohair in their collections which is a positive. They could be testing the waters and not making big announcements for obvious reasons.

The Spring/Summer 23 clothing collections are in store in NY and it was so exciting to see some RMS knitwear garments in COS and in H&M. We noted that COS also have many RWS and other certified vegetable fibre products in their store.

We thank COS and H&M for supporting our farmers and industries efforts.