Regenerative farming and natural fibres are fashion’s ‘only future’
The founder of a specialist sustainability consultancy for high-end clothing brands has said that a recent tour of sheep farms in New Zealand and Australia has convinced her that natural materials, produced using the principles of regenerative farming, are “the only future for textiles and fashion”.
Earlier this year, Lisa Bergstrand, founder of Stockholm-based Bergstrand Consultancy, visited nine farms on the South Island of New Zealand and in New South Wales in Australia.
She said that she had seen at close hand that sheep farms in Sweden were able to achieve a positive impact on soil-health and an increase biodiversity. However, because so much of the wool used in the fashion industry is merino wool, she wanted to see if merino farms, with many thousands of sheep, could achieve the same improvements.
In her talks on the ground with farmers in both southern-hemisphere countries, she learned that a change to regenerative farming practices had enabled wool-growers there to end their use of pesticides.
In addition, farmers said that the way they manage their land and animals, moving the sheep to a new paddock every three days, had helped them make the soil more resilient to droughts, floods and wildfires. Another important finding was that these farmers said the new practices had helped them cut their costs.
Ms Bergstrand founded her consultancy in 2017, after x years working in the fashion industry. She has worked with brands including Céline, Isabel Marant and Saint Laurent. She has also founded her own clothing brand, A New Sweden.
She said her tour of farms in Australia and New Zealand had shown her it is possible to have thousands of sheep on one property and still make sure the land is healthy and that biodiversity thrives. “This trip made me believe that natural materials, farmed with regenerative principles, is the only future for textiles and fashion,” she concluded.
Image shows: Lisa Bergstrand with one of the wool-growers she met on her tour of New Zealand and Australia.
Credit: Bergstrand Consultancy.
