Excerpt from article referencing Wave Fibre Mill…
In August, 2022, on the cusp of her “dream job” in marketing, Julia Gray was on the hunt for a new blazer that fit her petite frame and was made from natural materials. Three months later, Gray lost her job. “That day I got let go, there was this voice in my head that was like, you wanted that jacket three months ago, it’s still in your head now. Go and make that jacket.”
So, last June, Gray and her husband, Connor Dudgeon, visited a fibre mill near his family home in Parry Sound, called Wave Fibre Mill, Ontario’s only fleece-to-fabric mill, which the clothing designer Wave Weir had opened just the spring prior. “I learned about the Ontario wool industry,” says Gray. “I learned about wool’s possibilities as a fibre. I learned about its connection to the community.”
Invigorated by a fresh sense of purpose that trumped their lack of retail and design experience, Gray and Dudgeon produced a run of seven blazers with Weir made from 100 per cent Ontario wool, which have nearly sold out at Grays, their new shop and community space in Toronto’s Little Portugal. Alongside their in-house label of the same name, Grays carries a small selection of designers who share their values of small-scale, local production and natural textiles.
