AOW Insider Interview with Mathieu le Traon of In Tweed We Trust
This month, I am delighted to interview Mathieu of In Tweed We Trust, a colleague I had the pleasure to meet and photograph last year. Mathieu's work is dear to my heart because it ties into the story that I am photographing about the French wool industry. He is one of the few designers working with local farmers here in France to source the fibers for his bespoke textiles. He is truly walking the walk and has a sincere drive to help sustain French textile weaving know-how.
He is passionate about both the materials and the process as he works away in his small atelier at his home in Paris. He says, "wool tells a fascinating story. It’s the story of our relationship to the environment and to animals, the story of humanity's ingenuity and efforts in developing science, technology, and arts. I feel that in some ways wool connects us to the history of mankind, and that's what makes it so unique." I couldn't agree more. Let’s dive in!
Can you tell readers a bit about your background and how you first got into this field?
Originally a geophysical engineer, I spent the last 15 years working in the field of higher education as a director for international relations. For a long time, I had an interest in men’s style, which made me very curious about the way cloth was made. Driven by this curiosity, I took a week-long workshop by a handweaver in Brittany in 2016, and I got hooked! That is how my life started to change.
I went on teaching myself weaving through the challenging – but so formative – process of trial and error along with the help of some wonderful online resources provided by several North American weavers. This self-teaching approach has allowed me to quickly develop my own technique and creative universe. After showing my work to several experts in the fields of luxury fashion and interior decoration, I was encouraged and confident enough to try and develop my activity as a luxury handweaver. I felt there was interest in the matter and believed the craft could only grow in our increasingly globalized and standardized world. That is how I created In Tweed We Trust.
I realize you are sourcing the majority of your yarns from small producers whom you know personally, including sheep farmers from France. Can you tell readers why this is important? What makes wool fiber from France so unique to your textiles?
I decided very early on to focus on animal fibers, which offer in my opinion the greatest and richest variety of sensations and emotions. They also carry amazing stories of breeding and spinning know-how. Each fiber is different, depending on the breed of the animal and on the spinning process. Wool says a lot about landscapes and about people too.
I came to take a very keen interest in sheep breeds and other fleece animals, and to learn more about their characteristics. That is how I started to buy breed-specific yarn from small spinning mills and breeders, at first mostly in the UK and Sweden, which have a long tradition of wool production combined to breed preservation. It was way more difficult to do in France, but I managed to meet with wonderful and passionate breeders, and I started to find some amazing fibers.
One of my favorite yarns is an exceptional wool originating from the Champagne region. The breeder, who breeds Romane ewes for meat production, strongly felt it was a shame that he had to throw away his ewes’ fleeces. He decided to have a very small quantity of wool spun in a mini-mill. Originally an ambitious bet, this wool proved to be very supple, fluffy, and soft. I like to associate it with an ultra-fine yak and merino yarn that help reveal all the beauty of the Romane wool. I like feeling a bit like an alchemist when I combine yarns so that each fiber helps the others express their richness and character. I hope I will be able to find more and more of those exceptional niche yarns in France.
Besides those breed-specific rare yarns, I also use yarns from luxury spinning mills in Scotland and Italy, for fibers such as cashmere, yak or vicuna, which I would not be able to find directly by the farmers. Regardless of the type, origin or price of the fibers I use, though, I treat each of them as a precious, luxury resource that I endeavor to sublimate.
What are the main issues sheep farmers are facing today in terms of selling their wool?
Sheep breeding in France has been clearly shifting for a few decades to the production of meat, and to a lesser extent milk. Wool was mostly considered a by-product, sometimes even a nuisance when the cost of shearing exceeded the selling price of the raw wool. As a consequence, the quality of fleeces decreased, some domestic breeds with good wool properties but poor meat qualities were left aside, facilities (for scouring, spinning and weaving/knitting) closed, know-how was lost and the French wool industry shrunk dramatically.
Today, French breeders who want to sell and add value to their wool are confronted by weak points at several stages in the whole French wool ecosystem that hinder their capacity to plan and project themselves. Fortunately, the situation is starting to change.
What is happening in France now that is helping to revive this industry?
Several initiatives have sprouted in France these last years to help revive the wool industry. Many actors have been very active in starting a process to rebuild knowledge, networks, and markets, and to raise awareness and develop customers’ taste and appreciation of wool, be it in fashion, interior design, the bedding industry, or for industrial and construction use where technical felts are much appreciated.
Brands are a key player in the process, as they can be a driving force to both educate customers and develop the market for quality French woolen products, providing opportunities for breeders, but also the remaining spinning mills, weaving mills, hosiery factories, and garment manufacturers.
At my level as an artisan, I try to take part in this movement by creating luxury fabrics – shawls, throws and fabrics for home decoration – out of French wools, in order to raise consumer awareness and appetence for those wools.
What is at stake of being lost which you have witnessed first-hand?
What struck me when I started – and what motivated me to become a luxury hand weaver – was the realization that the world of weave structures and patterns was slowly dying. Because of the needs of optimization in the industry, there has been a very strong move to standardize weave structures, a sense of variety often being created with print, or using colors. But many patterns, the structure of which would be too complicated or costly to produce industrially, were forgotten. The grammar of weaving is lost and our textile language is impoverished as the same structures, the same "tricks" can be seen everywhere.
Handweavers have maintained knowledge of creating patterns using rich weave structures that allow the fibers to reveal their full beauty, but their knowledge is in danger of being lost as there are very few of us left. I think it is a shame and that our textile language must be revived and enriched. That is why I work a lot on patterns, using resources from the 19th and early 20th Centuries to keep our heritage alive.
Do you sense there is a revival for the industry?
The industry is definitely trying to get back into shape and a lot has been done. Then again what is central is the issue of the customers’ knowledge and appetence for wool products, and their willingness to pay the price for a quality material, bred and manufactured in France.
What is your vision for In Tweed We Trust?
My objective is to propose luxury fabrics that are rich with stories conveyed by both the fiber and the weave. I like telling stories and stirring emotions with my weaving, and I offer bespoke fabrics that I see as a testimony of the client’s own personal universe, their own story. The dialogue with clients is a huge part of what motivates my work: sharing with them my discoveries of outstanding yarns, designing patterns that awake in them true emotions and sensations, sharing my passion.
What were most of the woolen items being used for traditionally and why do you think the know-how has been lost over the years?
Wool is a very versatile material with extraordinary physical properties, each breed and type of processing gives precise and very useful applications for clothing, decoration, bedding, insulation, mechanical engineering, etc. In clothing, wool has fascinating insulating, thermoregulating and breathability properties that make it perfect for winter garments but also for summer clothes, which is much less known!
Even though I think the general public has lost the sense and knowledge of wool (which accounts for less than 3% of the global textile industry), or of textile in general, there are still some people (and I count myself among them!) striving to preserve and revive our rich woolen heritage and to maintain the know-how.
What is in danger of being lost, and what I try to fight for, is the use of wool as a luxury item in fashion and interior design. However, I believe it has a chance to survive, and the example of the revival of the taste for bespoke clothing in men’s fashion is very encouraging. More awareness and a desire from customers for a more personalized, authentic, and less standardized luxury is also growing, and after the crisis we’ve been going through, I believe it can only grow stronger and reach larger segments of the market.
Anything more you would like to add?
Wool has an extraordinary emotional potential, and I can't help but think that the reason why it brings us such strong sensations – a sense of comfort, of protection, a wonder at the richness of the material, perhaps even a sense of gratitude – is that wool tells a fascinating story. It is the story of our relationship to the environment and to animals, the story of humanity's ingenuity and efforts in developing science, technology, and arts. I feel that in some ways wool connects us to the history of mankind and that's what makes it so unique.
For more info: https://intweedwetrust.fr/en/