Australian wool the new mark of having made it in China

CHINA’S middle class have become the world’s largest buyers of Australian wool, keen to wear their wealth for their friends to see.

China, Beijing, 2015. PHOTO © Patrick Alleyn. International Woolmark Prize, Womenswear Final. Australian Fashion Designers : Peter Strateas and Mario-Luca Carlucci.

MEMBERS  of China’s ­middle class have ­become the world’s largest buyers of Australian wool, keen to wear their wealth for their friends to see rather than turn the wool into clothes to be sold elsewhere across the world.

At the prestigious Internat­ional Woolmark Prize judging in Beijing on Tuesday, Woolmark chief executive Stuart McCullough said there was a growing trend for Chinese consumers to buy and wear wool products, rather than the commodity just being processed into clothing made in China and sold offshore.

Emerging American designer Marcia Patmos won the Woolmark prize for womenswear.

The high-profile awards were held in Beijing to pitch directly into China’s consumer market, coinciding with the lunar year of the sheep. Ms Patmos, whose label M. Patmos was established four years ago, beat Australian duo Strateas. Carlucci, homegrown Chinese group V. Major, German’s Augustin Taboul and Bird on a Wire from Lebanon.

The high-profile judging panel included Victoria Beckham, Vogue China editor Angelica Cheung, who has a strong following on mainland China, and Vogue Italia editor-in-chief Franca Sozzani.

The winning collection, described as sophisticated, will be stocked in Saks Fifth Avenue, Harvey Nichols, David Jones and retailers around the world from August.

Under the terms of the competition, run by the Australian wool group, the clothes must be produced with merino wool.

China buys 80 per cent of Australia’s wool exports, valued at $1.94 billion, and is becoming the world’s largest consumer of wool.

“The Chinese demand for our wool has been growing since the 1990s but the real change that we have seen over the last five years is that now they are not only processing it, they are converting it and wearing it,” Mr McCullough said.

Under current trade terms between the two countries, a quota of 287 million tonnes of wool can be sent from Australia to China, with a tax of only 1 per cent, each year. However, exports above that level attract a 38 per cent tariff.

The Free Trade Agreement, signed between the countries in November, agreed to increase the low tariff amount of wool by 30 million tonnes.

Hundreds of fashion products made with Australian-produced wool were listed for sale on Taobao, the Chinese equivalent of eBay, yesterday.

Scarves sold for as little as 20 yuan (about $4.20), but a French-branded overcoat was listed for 11,260 yuan, nearly double the average Beijing monthly wage of 6000 yuan.

Additional reporting: Wang Yuanyuan