About us
We are a young, sustainable and fair slow fashion label and circular business that works with wild wool. We have long-lasting, timelessly beautiful garments and homestyle goods handmade and produced in small series in German manufactories. Our products are created with love and designed with care. They have a clever functionality and are constant companions, telling our unique story. Clear shapes and sophisticated details are just as important to us as robustly processed, high-quality materials and animal welfare. When shearing sheep on the Faroe Islands - the remote islands in the middle of the North Atlantic are our second home - we take our time and work with respect and traditional hand shears. It takes hours, days. No sheep should be unnecessarily stressed or in any case injured.
Our ethical compass determines our products, view of things and our behavior: Economy, ecology and social justice must be possible side by side without endangering the living conditions of future generations. We are resolutely opposed to throwaway mentality and are passionate about transparency and open communication. We know all our partners in person. With all producers and suppliers we maintain a lively exchange of ideas. Wild wool is our passion, heartfelt concern and mission. By selling our products, we not only help to preserve the unique processing chain we have created for the farmers. We also directly support their work. Because all proceeds are shared within this community.
We named our products after our farmer friends. Together, we are walking the path of change. Until recently, the wool of the Faroe Islands' sheep was thrown away and burned because it is difficult to process, and Nordic wool is not in demand on the world market. With our work we give back value to a natural and renewable resource. Our goal is to preserve and ensure the continuation of what is good. For us and for following generations. Meanwhile, we also devote our attention to the wool of Nordic Fjordland sheep. In this way, we support a traditional nomadic sheep farm. Everything for wild wool!
From the idea to start up
The thread leads back to 2013. After we, Anja and Francesco, watched a TV documentary about the Faroe Islands on a cold January day, we spontaneously packed a bag and went on a week-long vacation to the archipelago. 18 islands we fell in love with; and made them our second home just three months later. We found our dream home in a tiny village called Elduvík. Church, wind and weather vanes, grass roofs, overlooking a bay and the North Atlantic. We learned to read the sky and where to fish on the fjord with a small boat. We felt deceleration and became part of a sworn village community.
During our first summer on the islands, when we experienced our very first sheep shearing - in the sense of standing for hours in a pen with rubber boots, cutting short hairstyles of long-maned shaggy sheep with patience, care and hand shears, just like our Faroese neighbors do; Border Collies wagging their tails nearby; pancakes piled up on a rickety table - we realized that almost all the wool ended up in the trash afterwards. What a waste! This cannot and must not be, Francesco thought, and began an extensive, elaborate and passionate research. The goal was to figure out how wild wool could work sustainably, fairly and ecologically in the fashion market. His journey took him across Europe, towards small manufactures and people who see something wonderful, a value, in wool. In 2020 he founded the Nordic Wool Factory. In the store we show our first collection. Piper Malik published Anja's book about the wool and our life - "Meine wilden Inseln“.
Francesco: Globetrotter. Likes to sleep long. Likes operas. Likes to eat, usually too much. Passion number one: Nordic short-tailed sheep. The smartest sheep in the world, he says. If he could, he would adopt them all.
Anja: The fine feather. As a journalist, she accompanied the rich and beautiful for years, putting her feet in her stomach. Today she writes books and juggles word pictures and expressions for Nordic Wool Factory.