Merino Shirt Women

For the most part, the organic merino wool for our shirt comes from South America. A smaller part comes from Australia. The South American wool is washed and combed on-site close to the farms. Only then the wool is shipped to our partner Schoeller-Wool in Hard (close to the Swiss boarder). The Australian wool is firstly shipped to China to be washed and combed before being sent to the Schoeller-Wool site. We are not happy about this fact. We try to receive only South American wool for our clothing from Schoeller-Wool. Unfortunatly this is not easy to accomplish. Organic merino wool is extremely rare, only a few farmers around the globe comply with those strict guidelines. To prevent material shortages for our shirts we are obliged to buy Australian wool in addition. Arrived on the company site in Hard, the organic merino wool is finished in a complex process. This step is very important so that the shirt is machine washable and doesn’t need to be hand washed after use. Normally the finishing process uses a lot of chlorine, which is harmful for the employees as well as for the environment. This is for us a no-go. To our knowledge Schoeller-Wool is the only company which has the know-how of finishing without chlorine and undertakes all process steps in Europe.

After the finishing, the wool is shipped to Kresice in the Czech Republic near the Elb. There the wool is spun to a fine thread. Afterwards the product is transported to the Nägeli AG in Ermattingen for the knitting. At this point the wool has already travelled a long way. So the question can arise, is this still in terms with an organic product? Yes, it is organic. We don’t want that our sheep are prophylactically treated with antibiotics or to be feed with minor quality feed pellets and eventually slaughtered miles and miles away from the farm. Our organically kept sheep are only treated with antibiotics if an infection could be determined and only fed with grass. At the end of their life they are brought to slaughterhouses near the farm. Organic products are for the protection of animal welfare, so the location of the raw material production is secondary for us. The emitted CO2 from the transport is compensated to 100% with projects from our partner MyClimate. Unfortunately, there is no possibility to receive organic merino wool with the desired quality from farmers in Switzerland or Europe.

400 kg of organic merino wool is processed to the final fabric at the Aldo Nägeli AG in Ermattingen. In the course of 2 weeks time the circular knitting machines produce 2400 meters of high quality fabric.

The Aldo Nägeli AG was founded over 100 years ago and is still in family ownership. At peak times the company employed almost 200 employees on the 45 machines. Today only a fraction of this are employed. The remaining employees and the head of the company, Mr. Nägeli jr jr jr, work hard to ensure that this unique Swiss business can continue producing high quality knitted fabrics despite the harsh foreign competition. The head of the company is involved in every process whether machine maintenance, refills or coordination of the different orders. With our cooperation with the Aldo Nägeli AG we contribute to keep the work and know-how in Switzerland. We hope that we can commission reorders soon.

The production of the long sleeved shirts is compared to our other products relatively simple. About 15 minutes are needed to sew the separate parts together.

But here too precision is essential: the seam needs to be at the right place so no unpleasant itching is experienced or the seams open up again.