Over The Horizon

Japanese Wrapped in NZ Wool

Three top Japanese apparel houses are offering their top-flight clients the "Perfect Winter Suit" made from specially engineered fabric woven from 100% New Zealand merino. These suits, which retail for up to $3,500, are the result of a Japanese project, involving leading international textile scientists.

Scientists from the Wool Research Organisation of New Zealand (WRONZ) helped develop the textile mechanics knowledge, measurement systems and processing understanding necessary to engineer the world's best suiting fabrics. WRONZ Processing and Apparel Division Manager, Dr Nigel Johnson, explains that in academic terms, the perfect suit has been evolving over the last 30 years.

"This is an interesting chronology of how scientific basic research eventually leads to a commercial outcome," he says. "In the late 1960s, studies of textile mechanics identified the properties essential for fabric performance, such as strength, handle, drape and tailorability. Instruments to measure these properties were then developed, and became available commercially in 1973.

"Ten years later the Japanese view of what would constitute a 'Perfect Suit Fabric' was determined by surveying fabric experts who were able to put forward their specifications in terms of these common measurable fabric properties."

In a joint project with Professor Kawabata from the University of Shiga Prefecture and a group of Japanese textile companies, WRONZ prepared tops from appropriate New Zealand wools which were sent to Japan to be spun into yarn from which the first Perfect Suit Fabrics were manufactured. WRONZ briefed Merino New Zealand on the technology and introduced them to the relevant Japanese contacts. Merino NZ then worked to supply suitable merino fibre and also contributed retail marketing expertise.

The winter suit fabric is made from a combination of merino of different diameters which give it a smooth, soft handle. Some 114 rolls of Perfect Winter Fabric in 100% New Zealand merino have been produced for test marketing in the autumn/winter season.

"This is really the top end of the market," Johnson says. "The total value of suits sold in this first season should exceed $6 million."

At least two major companies have also produced a first range of fabrics that satisfy the criteria for Perfect Japanese Summer Suiting, using New Zealand fibre. This fabric is made using merino in the warp and coarser mid-micron wool in the weft, which produces the dry and crisp handle, currently preferred by the Japanese for the hot, sticky conditions of the Asian summer.

"By using a proportion of coarser wool with the merino, we have engineered a fabric which has special comfort and appearance properties, including breathability, anti-cling drape, crispness and wrinkling resistance."