Wyvern Vale Tailoring - Alpaca Tweed

Dorset Alpaca Tweed

Something exciting is afoot in neighbouring Dorset. Edward Ebbern at newly-formed Wyvern Tailoring — born from Wyvern Vale Alpacas of Dorset — will soon be bringing suits made from British alpaca tweed to market.

Edward developed a love of fine tailoring from his time in the military. Having moved to Dorset to start a herd of alpacas, he has worked at producing a cloth that is pure alpaca and works as suiting fabric. First his herd was developed to create the best raw materials, if you will. Once Edward knew that the animals were producing prefect fleece, he located a British mill that could process the fibre as he wanted by 'blending natural colours and achieving the strength of fibre we needed without losing the silky soft feel'.

Of the fibre used, Edward says: 'We only use fibre that is 23 microns or under which means you will never get that scratchy or rough feel that you can get with wool, which combined with the fact it is a dry fibre is something that can help those with allergies to wool. For a comparison of softness think cashmere.'

Next, Edward secured the talents of a tweed designer and weaver to create the cloth, like the herringbone tweed we see in these pictures, which is 100% alpaca and undyed.

Made-to-measure suits are hand cut and stitched from the cloth in the UK. By their very nature, runs of the cloth will be limited to the amount of fleece the herd is able to produce.

From field to fitting, what is being created is a wholly British product of great quality. It is up to you and I, dear reader, to support such noble and original enterprises and the farmers and craftsmen behind them.

We don't have any further gen on where to order and web sites and such yet. We'll bring more news as we get it. We'll also try and get some more shots of the suits.