New Zealand-based outdoor brand Icebreaker has been creating clothing using merino wool for 24 years.
Building on a chance meeting in a merino station, Icebreaker has since grown to be available in 4,500 stores in over 47 countries and via its website in 23 countries.
Icebreaker's chief brand and product officer Carla Murphy said the company has blossomed based on a simple belief that businesses don't have to look any further than nature.
"Icebreaker began with a chance meeting on a New Zealand merino station, where founder Jeremy Moon first encountered merino.
"This ancient fibre was still relatively unknown at the time, but Jeremy was captivated by its natural performance properties and set out to disrupt an outdoor industry that at the time was promoting synthetics next to skin, which to him was the most ironic of messages.
"24 years later, Icebreaker is sold in over 47 countries and still operates on the same principles today as day one, built on a very simple proposition that nature provides the answers.
"Icebreaker creates natural, fully transparent and traceable apparel as an alternative to petrochemical and synthetic based clothing."
Murphy said that the wool responds to external conditions, keeping the wearer at a comfortable temperature, making it ideal for outdoor clothing.
"The natural performing properties of merino wool far outweighs any synthetic alternatives, from resilience, comfort, thermoregulation to odour management, biodegradation and versatility.
"The merino sheep is one of the world’s most ancient breeds of sheep and one of the toughest.
"Unlike regular sheep who chew grass in the lowlands, the merino is built to survive the scorching summers and freezing winters of New Zealand’s rugged Southern Alps.
"The merino is able to survive these extremes because of the incredible natural engineering of its fleece. Super lightweight and breathable in the summer, the merino’s summer coat is able to keep cool in temperatures up to +35 °C in summer.
"Merino is a natural technical active fibre, which has the ability to gain and release heat depending on the wearers next-to-skin environment and the external conditions.
"As merino absorbs moisture it releases a small, but perceptible, amount of heat, and in hot conditions the reverse effect occurs.
"This means you stay warmer in cold conditions and cooler in hot conditions. It’s like wearing your own personal natural eco system.
"Under the right conditions, merino will readily biodegrade when buried in soil. Synthetic materials will not readily biodegrade and can remain in the environment for many years," she said.
Challenging the use of synthetic materials in outdoor wear through its garments, Icebreaker also encourages consumers to consider the impact of their wardrobe, especially around microplastics.
Highlighting this impact, as part of its Move to Natural campaign, Icebreaker supported long-distance swimmer Ben Lecomte on a three-month, 350 nautical mile swim across the Plastic Vortex in the ocean.
During the three-month long voyage, the crew took samples every 30 to 50 nautical miles and was the first to provide extensive sampling on the plastic pollution in the Vortex and has formed the first trans-pacific data set.
The team collected 45,000 microplastics and spotted 3,700 pieces of plastic debris along their journey.
Murphy said that Icebreaker will continue its Move to Natural campaign initiatives and predicts that awareness around fashion's impact will only increase in coming years.
"We will continue to drive our Move to Natural brand campaign and initiative focused on those natural progressive individuals raising awareness on important topics and also connecting us to alternative ways of living.
"This is a long lasting program and we will be fuelling this initiative further over the next 12 months and longer.
"[In terms of sustainable fashion] the continued casualisation of lifestyles and people’s desire to own less and be more aware of their personal impact will drive a need for sustainable clothing to be more versatile, aesthetically desirable and functional, with clearly communicated low impact attributes.
"The rising awareness of waste, pollution, climate change and access to more information than ever, is driving people to assess what they need, over what they want and driving a need to reset the balance of what’s in their wardrobes.
"New business models will also contribute to drive change in behaviours, the arrival of rental platforms and pre-owned initiatives will become more the norm and more accessible, contribute to a more circular economy and a new way of consuming goods," she said.