The merino wool will then be processed into “top”, spun and hand-knitted by 92-year-old Margaret Broadbent into prototype knits – which could take up to four months. About 10 to 20 jumpers will be made from the fine-gauge wool.
M.J. Bale founder and chief executive Matt Jensen said it felt like a cottage industry, with limited scalability given the cost of asparagopsis, but business must do more to address climate issues.
“We must challenge ourselves. I’ve got four children … and it’s important for us to try and leave the Earth in a better place than we inherited it,” Mr Jensen said after stopping his bike en route on the first 20 kilometres from the farm.
Wool farmer Simon Cameron, Grant Maddock and Matt Jensen.
Melanie Kate
“Business can lead the charge into these more sustainable ventures. We’re so blessed with all these natural resources, sun, wave, agricultural, and if we overlay creativity and technology, we’ve got an opportunity to try and do things in a better way that is more sustainable for the future.”
Two Dogs said he had dedicated his life to identifying solutions to environmental problems and had followed M.J. Bale with interest since it was at the forefront of the fashion industry in combating climate change.
“Partnerships with industry are key to us healing the environment, and I am proud to be part of the solution being put forward by M.J. Bale, Sea Forest and Kingston,” he said.
Mr Jensen, with former fashion designer Sam Elsom, who founded the seaweed farming start-up in 2019, embarked on a pilot program to lower the methane emissions of a small flock of 48 sheep at Kingston, which has now grown to 500 sheep producing about 1.5 tonnes of wool.
This small batch of wool being locally transported was kept in Australia to see if M.J. Bale can create an entire supply chain locally and rejuvenate what is a “mothballed industry” with only a few players in wool processing and manufacturing.
The remaining Kingston zero-emission wool will be shipped to one of Europe’s oldest and most sustainable weavers in Italy, Vitale Barberis Canonicor, although Mr Jensen admits sea freight to Italy is not ideal.
About 250 limited-edition blazers at M.J. Bale’s tailoring atelier in Japan will be made from this wool.
M.J. Bale already makes its Kingston range suiting, which comes from sheep from the farm of Simon Cameron – a sixth-generation farmer and conservationist. The Kingston suit costs about $1100, but a percentage of every sale is returned to Mr Cameron to be reinvested into farm projects.
