All good-quality wool, regardless of origin, is valued for its warmth, breathability and comfort. Wool regulates body temperature by keeping moisture away from the skin, ensuring that the wearer is never too hot or too cold, no matter what the season. With that said, Norwegian wool in particular has some extraordinary qualities.

One of these is durability, a hallmark of Norwegian products in general.

Gisle M Mardal is Head of Development at NF&TA, a national cluster for the Norwegian fashion and textile industry. He is also the project manager for Innovating Norwegian Wool (more on that below).

As Mardal explains, wool from Norwegian crossbred sheep, the most common in commercial use, has a long staple length, which creates especially strong fibres. Normally creamy white, this wool can be dyed any colour and made into a wide range of products such as furniture textiles, knitted and woven outerwear, and warm indoor blankets. It is not uncommon for such wool products to last for decades and even get passed down to the next generation.

“Norwegian wool is also known for its lustre and wearability,” he says. While not suitable for wearing close to the skin, Norwegian wool is perfectly soft, fluffy and flexible to wear as a mid or outer layer – think of the stunning, multi-coloured knitted sweaters or woven blankets in classic or contemporary Norwegian designs.

Another quality is crimp, the natural waviness of the wool fibre. The more the crimp, the better the insulation. In addition, Norwegian wool is high in lanolin, a natural, water-repellent oil. Both crimp and lanolin come from the way the sheep are raised.

“Norwegian wool is robust because the animals are robust,” states Elisabeth Stray Pedersen, a wool clothing designer and founder of ESP, which produces contemporary wool outerwear. She is also the owner of Lillunn, a legacy wool textiles brand that she purchased to carry on the tradition. In addition, she is a participant in the Innovating Norwegian Wool project.

“The sheep live outdoors year-round, roaming freely in all kinds of weather. This is why their wool is so naturally warm. Norwegian wool is special in this regard,” she explains. “It also means that Norwegian sheep breeders practice the highest standards of animal welfare.”

The Spælsau, or Old Norwegian Sheep, is believed to be the first breed of sheep in Norway, dating back 3 000 years. It is this wool that clothed the Vikings on their voyages across the Atlantic Ocean. Today only about one-fifth of Norway’s sheep stock is the Spælsau breed, but some wool industry experts see potential in the Spælsau as an up-and-coming niche market.

“Spælsau is a less commercial wool because it’s pigmented, but the quality is fantastic with various degrees of softness, shine and fibre length,” states Mardal. While some wool is white, most of it comes in black, brown, grey or multicoloured, which must be used in its original colour.

“When the wool is spun, the shade varies from yarn to yarn – all of it beautiful. Unlike commercially dyed yarn, no two Spælsau products will be the same,” he adds.

Norway has an end-to-end value chain in wool, from sheep farming and wool collection and treatment to yarn spinneries, wool mills and knitwear factories. This demonstrates the resilience of Norway’s centuries-old wool textile industry. In fact, the country has managed to retain all the components of wool textile production while other textile industries in Europe have succumbed to the pressures of globalisation.

“Today in Norway, the wool textile industry accounts for both local and national value creation,” says Mardal.

The country has a strong home market for national costumes, which is an important carrier of the wool industry. Moreover, the tourism industry in Norway has matured, and tourists that used to settle for cheap wool-blends now demand the “real deal” – 100 per cent, high-quality wool and world-class Norwegian craftsmanship.

He notes, however, that while demand for Norwegian wool is high, the production of wool as a raw material has declined in Norway in recent decades. Mardal believes this can be reversed through changes in government policy. “The problem has been brought to the attention of politicians, and there are changes happening.”

Yes, Norway has centuries of wool textile experience, but it is not stuck in the past. The country scores well above average in international rankings of innovation, and its modern wool textile industry illustrates this. Take the Innovating Norwegian Wool project, for example, which encapsulates all the positive changes happening in the whole of Norway’s wool textile industry. The project is a public-private collaboration, funded by the Norwegian government.

“This project covers three main areas: new 3D knitting technologies, circular innovation including recycling, and low-valued wool, which is discarded or unusable wool,” states Kjersti Kviseth, a wool textiles expert specialising in circular design principles. Alongside Mardal, she works on the project’s technical aspects related to circular innovation and low-valued wool.

“Wool recycling is high on the industry’s agenda,” she explains. “Everyone knows there will be new EU rules to comply with, but this isn’t the only motivation for our work. We believe it’s important to shrink our environmental footprint for our planet’s sake. Moreover, unused wool has financial value, and it’s a shame to waste it.”

In her own endeavour, Kviseth is establishing a new company to advance the industry in all these areas. Known as SIRKULL (a Norwegian acronym for “circular wool”), the company will have the capacity to recycle wool mechanically in small to big batches from the wool industry. Focus will be on producing the longest fibre staple length possible to achieve new levels of quality in recycled wool. SIRKULL is expected to be up and running in the first half of 2025.

In addition, she highlights an innovative recycling company called NTG, which operates on a much larger scale. NTG is a mechanical textile recycling company that receives, sorts, prepares and recycles textiles into fibres, creating the conditions for a circular textile value chain. As a participant in the Innovating Norwegian Wool project, NTG is testing recycling of production waste from the Norwegian wool textile industry.

Finally, Mardal mentions the project’s importance for increasing collaboration and networking among industry actors. “Many of the Norwegian wool companies are now being run by second or third generation owners. This is especially promising because it is the younger generation who is most concerned with circularity, sustainability and new technology,” he concludes.