On 1 October, I’m going to put on a dress.
And then I’m going to wear it every day for the next 90 days.
It sounds simple enough, but the 90-Day Wool Habit is an experiment I’ve been quietly building at Little Beau Sheep for months and with launch day now almost here, it’s starting to feel very real!
The idea is to explore what happens when, instead of constantly thinking about what we’re going to buy next, we choose one beautifully made garment and really use it.
For 90 consecutive days, I’ll wear the same bespoke British wool dress through work, travel, family life, dog walks, meetings, nights out and events, documenting honestly how it performs as we move from autumn into winter.
Can wool really regulate my temperature? Will the dress start to smell? How often will I need to wash it? Will I be completely sick of the sight of it by Christmas?
I genuinely don’t know all the answers yet but I’m excited to find out!
From British sheep to one very special dress
The story behind the dress is almost as important as what I’m going to do with it.
It begins with British Bluefaced Leicester and Masham wool, traceable back to British farms. The wool has been spun by Laxtons in Yorkshire, woven into fabric by Marton Mills in Otley and made into my finished navy dress by Norton & Townsend Tailors in Ilkley.
Yorkshire stylist Anna Mewes is helping me tackle another part of the experiment: just how many different ways can you wear one dress? And, a growing 90-Day Wool Habit Collective of brilliant British brands, makers and independent businesses are helping me too.
And there’s a lovely #SBS connection…
One of those collaborations has come from within this very community.
Fellow #SBS winner Handmade by Tinni has created a fabulous necklace to finish off my outfit for the Enterprise Vision Awards – a joyful burst of colour that couldn’t be further from the idea that wearing the same dress means looking the same every day.
And there will be plenty more #SBS company on the night as I’m a finalist in the Small Business Sunday (#SBS) category, so Day 2 of the challenge will see a whole table of #SBS winners coming together at Blackpool Winter Gardens to celebrate and cheer each other on! (And the dress is going from a business conference to an awards ceremony within its first 48 hours!)
Later in the challenge, I’ll also be joining the #SBS community again when I speak at an #SBS Bootcamp in Newcastle in November, by which point I should have rather more evidence about whether this idea was inspired or completely bonkers.
Why am I doing it?
As the founder of Little Beau Sheep, British wool has been at the heart of my business for more than a decade.
But I want this project to take the conversation beyond where wool comes from.
I want to talk about how we value our clothes, how often we wear them, how we care for them and what happens when we buy less but expect more from the things we own.
Over the 90 days I’ll be sharing the good, the bad and presumably the occasional wardrobe crisis, as well as what I discover about wool’s versatility, care, longevity and value.
Day 1 is 1 October. Day 90 is 29 December.
One dress. One fibre. 90 days.
Here we go… 🐑
PS if any other SBS winners would like to get involved, it’s not too late, drop me a line! sarah@littlebeausheep.com
