The case for undyed wool

A conventional rug's colour costs about 60 litres of water per kilo of wool. An undyed rug's colour costs a sorting table and a patient pair of hands. Fleece arrives in a continuous spectrum from cream to near-black, and the mill grades it into seven stable shades.

Undyed wool keeps its lanolin, which means it resists stains the way a waxed jacket resists rain. It also ages differently: instead of fading, the colours deepen slightly as the fibre polishes underfoot.

The trade-off is honesty. No two production runs match perfectly, because no two flocks match perfectly. We think of it as vintage variation, available new.