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This article is part of a new series where we unpack what the ‘Made in the UK’ label stands for in 2025, and what it tells us about the future of onshoring. Read our series on ‘Made in Italy’ here, and ‘Made in India’ here.
Jack Millington grew up on a farm in Leicestershire, but he had no experience of working with leather until he set up a niche tanning operation in 2016. Billy Tannery was the first new leather tannery to be built in the UK for nearly 100 years, and is the only one specialising in goat leather. This month, it launched a collection of leather products made from the hides of deer that roam rewilding project Knepp’s 3,500 acres in West Sussex.
Millington is part of a growing movement that is championing the use of natural British materials for fashion, many of which are otherwise cast aside by farmers as waste. Last year, the tannery collaborated with Alice Robinson and Sara Grady of British Pasture Leather (BPL), which was founded in 2020 with the aim of producing leather from fully traceable regenerative cattle farms, using natural, plant-based tannins. Similar grassroots projects are finding new uses for British wool, moving beyond the stigma of scratchy jumpers in favour of softer and more luxurious fibres.
The UK has a rich fashion manufacturing heritage, but the industry stands at a crossroads — it can either adapt to the new, tariff-accelerated era of localisation and thrive, or settle for decline.
Through partnership working and innovation, these projects are seeking to reconnect designers and consumers with the origins of their clothing, promote regenerative farming practices, and find a path forward that makes investment worthwhile for everyone along the supply chain. Advocates say this could help to make the UK fashion system more resilient, traceable and aligned with environmental goals. But after decades of offshoring and disinvestment, the supply chains for British materials are fragmented and fragile. How can the industry overcome such big hurdles?
Leather supply: A case study in fragility
The UK is a major beef and dairy producer, but there are few tanneries left, making it difficult to guarantee a stable, localised supply chain for leather. The flow of new tanners will falter when the country’s last leather tanning course (at the University of Northampton) closes its doors later this year. If a machine breaks in a micro-tannery like Millington’s, they need to wait for an engineer from Italy to fly over and fix it.
The lack of infrastructure is BPL’s greatest challenge: they have only found one tannery and one finishing facility they can work with to achieve the end product. “That’s quite scary really, isn’t it? That’s a big vulnerability,” Robinson says, sitting in BPL’s showroom in Rushden, Northamptonshire, surrounded by piles of thick, unfinished leather.
Undeterred, she and Grady see an opportunity to develop new systems tied to regenerative farming, with benefits for biodiversity, soil health and local economies. They source from farms that are certified by Pasture for Life, which champions the virtues of grass-based farming. BPL’s mission is to reframe leather not as a waste byproduct of meat production, but as a valuable material inherently linked to sustainable agricultural practices. “We’re making a distinction that the value — and I would also argue, the beauty — of this material is tied to the farming practices from which it originated,” says Grady. “That’s never existed in the leather supply chain before.”
Chrome (or chemical) tanning is the industry standard and leads to a consistent finish, but BPL takes a different approach, preserving the hide’s natural marks and imperfections. “The natural material is unpredictable because it’s from an animal, which has lived a life,” says Grady. While some brands are hesitant about leather that looks “too animal-like”, Robinson says, “We wanted to upend those expectations of a highly finished, very uniform piece.” Millington, who also uses vegetable tanning, agrees. His collaboration with Knepp retains visible scars: “It’s a big test to see if customers can rethink leather.”
Shifting perception and unlocking investment is tough. Proving the environmental benefits through costly LCAs (life cycle assessments) is a barrier, especially for small producers. “We need to think about it much more holistically than just through the lens of carbon,” Robinson argues. Looming EU deforestation legislation, which requires traceability to the farm level for leather products, presents a moment of urgency — and opportunity. “The leather industry writ large can’t answer those [traceability] questions,” says Robinson. “There’s a risk brands will just drop leather, unless a traceable supply chain like ours can provide an answer.”
Whether British leather can scale in time to meet this need is another question. Right now, Billy Tannery can process up to 10,000 square feet of leather per year, which is what some larger tanneries process in a single week. Millington hopes to expand tenfold with spare equipment already in storage and planning permission in the works. “Brands want to know where their leather is coming from and how it is being produced,” he says. “That gives me the confidence to scale up.”
Similarly, BPL’s model of radical transparency — they pay a consistent price for hides regardless of season, return a contribution to the farms they source from, and invite designers, farmers and customers into the process via field days (the next one is on 30 April) and collaborative projects — is attracting growing interest. “We’re ready to put the offering out there more widely,” says Grady, who hints at new brand partnerships in the works.
Bolstering British wool
Efforts are also underway to rebuild the wool supply chain. The UK has a rich history of sheep farming and wool production: Scotland’s Harris Tweed is globally protected by law and handwoven by islanders in the Outer Hebrides, while Yorkshire mills like Abraham Moon produce world-class worsted suiting fabrics. However, while the UK is home to over 70 sheep breeds — more than any other country in the world — British wool makes up just a sliver (1 per cent) of the global wool market. Most of that is used for floor coverings and insulation. Today, British farmers often receive less money for wool than it costs to shear, making it a byproduct rather than a valuable commodity.
Yorkshire-based farmer John Mason currently has around 650 Swaledale sheep in his flock, and 25 Bluefaced Leicesters. Over the last decade or so, he has bred the Swaledales to produce less wool in response to the changing market, where shearing costs around £1.50 per sheep, and the wool sells for just 25 pence per kilo. “Before my time, the wool cheque would pay the rent on the farm,” he says. “Now, it doesn’t even cover the cost of shearing.”
As in leather, a growing network of brands and experts believe there is scope to innovate, re-educate consumers, and scale up the use of British wool for fashion. Among them is Ruth Alice Rands, founder of knitwear brand Herd, who has built her business around traceable British wool, absorbing the risks of processing losses to guarantee a return for farmers, while telling romantic stories about the Bluefaced Leicester, a breed she calls “the Romeo of the sheep world”.
The fibre from the Bluefaced Leicester’s fleece has a diameter of around 26 micron, which makes it the closest the UK has to the fine fibres from Merinos (ranging from 11.5-24 micron), and results in a soft yarn more suited to apparel. Herd pays around £7 per kilo of Bluefaced Leicester to farmers like Mason, which can amount to as much as £11 per fleece. Still, the income is only a “nice bonus”, says Mason, who points out that they’re “not the hardiest of sheep”, making it hard to maintain large flocks. (At her collaboration launch with Herd last year, stylist Bay Garnett described the breed as being “famous for fucking and fainting”.)
Navygrey is another brand championing British wool. In an era where synthetic fibres dominate, founder Rachel Carvell-Spedding set out to challenge assumptions and show that British wool can be a premium material in its own right. “We like the wool having a bit of grit, we don’t want to shy away from that. We’re not trying to say it’s like cashmere, because we love the feeling of wool.” Through experimentation and collaboration with British Wool — the central marketing board for UK sheep farmers — she’s developed bespoke blends like Scottish Cheviot mixed with Bluefaced Leicester, and sees opportunity in tapping underused coarse breeds, especially as Navygrey grows and invests more in R&D. (Similarly, in Kent, farmers are experimenting with cross-breeding the Romney to reduce its micron count.)
Building this kind of brand comes with challenges. British wool, when processed entirely within the UK, is expensive — not because brands are profiteering, but because ethical, domestic manufacturing carries costs. There’s a perception gap, Carvell-Spedding notes, between what customers think a wool jumper should cost and what it actually costs to produce one responsibly. “If we wanted to make a huge profit, we would have to double the price of our jumpers, but we are not going to do that because we want it to be commercially successful.”
Making wool’s potential more visible
Maria Benjamin and her partner John Atkinson launched Lake District Tweed as part of a farm diversification project in 2021. They work with over 20 farmers in the Lake District area of northern England to source fleeces that would otherwise be burned or discarded, transforming them into tweed, throws and knitwear, with unique patterns inspired by the farms’ locations. The aim is to emulate provenance-based models like single-origin coffee or whisky: “We don’t have an awful lot of British wool, but we can really increase the value of it,” explains Benjamin over homemade lemon drizzle cake, served at the kitchen table in their farm in Ulverston.
At around the same time, they teamed up with knitwear design specialist Zoe Fletcher to launch The Wool Library, a knowledge-sharing and R&D platform that seeks to bridge the gap between farmers and designers. It demystifies fibre characteristics and processing, making wool’s potential visible to makers and brands. “Until you know exactly what breed or breeds go into a yarn, you can’t tell why it’s pilling, for example, or why one dye takes differently to another,” explains Fletcher. She sees wool as a co-product, not a byproduct, with untapped value streams — from lanolin for the beauty industry to compost and shrimp feed.
A major barrier is finance. Wool production is a long process, often taking over a year from shearing to finished product. “Last year, I spent over £100,000 on wool production,” Benjamin says. “For a tiny business, that’s a huge amount of money to be going out for so long.” She’s exploring solutions like a “wool bond”, a financing tool to support other British wool entrepreneurs. Cashflow is compounded by small-scale access challenges: “We have to slot in with the weavers, because we’re small. Say if they’re weaving for Burberry, they’re obviously going to put Burberry first.”
Despite the hurdles, the project — supported initially by UK government’s Farming in Protected Landscapes fund — is gaining momentum. Benjamin says it is a proof of concept that could scale, particularly through storytelling and regional identity. “If you came on holiday to the Lakes and went home with a blanket from Eskdale, whose pattern is inspired by the Eskdale stone, then you remember that,” she notes. This kind of emotional connection is core to their strategy — turning traceable wool into meaningful products and livelihoods. As Fletcher puts it, “The farmers are at the heart of it. That’s your marketing story. That’s your narrative.”
To push that narrative from niche to mainstream, industry organisations are trying to join the dots on British wool and plant wool garments within a broader spate of potential uses. British Wool’s sourcing guide compiles all available certified British wool yarns and cloths in an attempt to dismantle outdated assumptions that they are only suitable for coarse applications like carpets. Meanwhile, its new licensing scheme (which counts Navygrey and Harris Tweed Hebrides among its licensees) helps brands and consumers to unpick when “Made in the UK” actually means “made with British wool”. Elsewhere, The Woolkeepers initiative, led by by Jo Dawson of Saltaire-based wool merchant HDWool, is working with likeminded partners to certify British wool and come up with alternative uses for it, from bolster cushions that stop water run-off on peat bogs to mattress stuffing and insulation for winter jackets (the latter of which has been picked up by The North Face, Celtic Co. and Tom Beckbe among others).
Complementing these efforts is the Great British Wool Revival, a mapping and storytelling project led by think tank Fashion Roundtable and funded by Yoox Net-a-Porter, which spotlights the remaining mills, spinners and artisans working with British wool. By rebuilding relationships across the value chain, it’s helping brands and designers find — and use — what’s still here.
Seeking softness
While a growing faction is focused on promoting the qualities of British wool, a handful of pioneers are experimenting with breeds and systems that could support homegrown fine fibres for fashion. They posit that it could be possible to breed Merino sheep and cashmere goats in the UK, either for direct use or to breed or blend with coarser fibres from native species.
A stone’s throw from Herd’s countryside base in Gloucestershire lies Daylesford Organic, the sprawling country estate founded by Carole Bamford in 2002, which now houses a renowned farm shop and restaurant, an organic farm, a wellness centre, private members’ club, and her lifestyle brand Bamford. Two years ago, Bamford stumbled across an estimate that the average supply chain for Merino wool — a staple in (the brand) Bamford’s luxury womenswear collections — was over 18,000 miles. “We already had the farming experience to care for sheep at Daylesford, and relationships with some of the best wool artisans in Britain,” she says. “I thought, why not keep Merinos?”
The UK isn’t known for Merino sheep, and with good reason. They are far more at home in the dry climates of Australia and New Zealand than lush English pastures. But Bamford managed to track down a breed called Saxon Merino, which was introduced to England by the Romans, and copes better with rich grass, while still producing the fine, soft wool Merino is famed for. The flock that started with 10 ewes now stands at around 120. But it’s not without challenges. Getting the right yield can take time — for its second Merino collection, launching this September, Bamford will combine the Saxon Merino with Bluefaced Leicester. “This will ensure that we meet the staple length that artisans require to spin the yarn within the UK,” explains Bamford. “All of the wool will be processed and spun in Cornwall, then knitted on the Isle of Man and in Nottingham.”
A similar story is playing out in cashmere. Scotland is known for its cashmere production, but the fibres are typically imported from China and Mongolia, where extremely cold winters force the goats to develop a fine, insulating undercoat to survive. In the 1990s, a government-backed cooperative examined the fibre yield potential of Scottish cashmere; however, the project fizzled out due to a lack of market demand and subsidies.
The team behind Lunan Bay Farm in Scotland believe conditions have changed. “With climate change, Mongolia is seeing some of the heaviest rainfall year on year, leading to more frequent flooding,” explains Jillian McEwan, director of Lunan Bay. “In China, cashmere production’s been industrialised, and that comes with environmental and human welfare issues. So I think the timing’s more appropriate for establishing a homegrown supply of cashmere.” She notes that there’s also much greater awareness of these issues among consumers, brands and regulators now.
Three years ago, Lunan Bay began producing traceable, regenerative, Scottish-grown cashmere in partnership with Scottish mill Johnstons of Elgin and the University of Edinburgh Business School. It’s early days, but McEwan says the initial findings are promising. Trials show that Scottish-raised goats produce fibre of comparable quality to Mongolian/Chinese cashmere (Grade A = <15.5 micron). The project proves that the climate and terrain are suitable, and the goats thrive even in rugged Highland conditions. Plus, goat rearing could bring regenerative agriculture benefits: they eat invasive plants and enhance biodiversity and soil health.
Lunan Bay is working with agricultural research facility The James Hutton Institute on measuring the benefits to the land. The idea is to then make a business case to other local farmers. Each goat yields just 100–200g of usable cashmere per year, meaning meaningful production requires collaboration between multiple farms. “We buy around 250 tonnes of cashmere a year, so Mongolia and China are going to continue to be important,” says Chris Gaffney, CEO of Johnstons. “But we like the idea of having regenerative cashmere from Scotland, based upon the principle that the goats clear the ground for the sheep.”
Demand is growing among farmers, says McEwan, but consumers are just as interested. Lunan Bay runs successful cashmere farm tours, which help offset the low fibre yield per goat and strengthen the brand story. “There’s a huge demand for people who want to come and have these immersive experiences.”
A new kind of luxury
Taken together, these initiatives signal the emergence of a different kind of luxury — one rooted in landscape and local supply. The barriers to scale are significant: most of the initiatives highlighted here have grown without government backing or significant policy incentives. However, brands like Herd, Navygrey, Billy Tannery and British Pasture Leather are showing what’s possible when producers and designers collaborate from the ground up; building trust-based — rather than price-driven — value chains.
Whether through farm-to-fibre storytelling, regenerative land use, or simply making fewer, better things, the future of British materials won’t be defined by volume, but by values.
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