With her label Lou de Bètoly, Odély Teboul approaches unusual material. Sounds strange – yarns made from dog hair have a long tradition.
Nothing for allergy sufferers, but for avant-gardists: pullover by Lou de Bètoly, trimmed with valuables.Lou of Betoly
A knitted fabric made from old cables that becomes the seat of a chair, an unusual piece of furniture. Small cuddly toys from the flea market, cut open and freed from the filling material, embroidered with gemstones and made into a miniature handbag. Dresses, pullovers, leggings, all crocheted by hand, more like wool net than clothing: Odély Teboul is known for her unreal, impossible designs. So it is hardly surprising that the Berlin designer is now turning to a strange material.
“I love noble, expensive wool, Angora for example, preferably French products,” she says. “That’s why I was immediately fascinated when I got my hands on this incredibly soft yarn a while ago.” She asked in the yarn shop what this unusually fluffy material was; Dog hair, so the answer, which was quite irritating. Odély Teboul grabbed it anyway – a few days ago she presented her first designs made of pet wool under her fashion label Lou de Bètoly.
“An experiment” is what the designer calls her small collection that was created with the unusual yarn: no more than ten pieces, each handmade by Teboul himself, various tops and pullovers. The designer sewed all over old pieces of jewelery onto a particularly attractive specimen – necklaces, rings, watches, in silver and gold, now sparkle on the crocheted sweater made from dog hair. And as strange as it may sound, the material actually has a very long tradition.
Not only that there are prehistoric finds of yarns spun from dog hair. In Scandinavia, for example, corresponding archaeological discoveries have been made; such yarn was also used by the Navajo tribes – dog hair was the most common fiber on the entire continent before the Spanish colonizers brought sheep to North America. But even in the recent past, yarn has been part of the natural repertoire of fashion design.
Collection campaigns against material shortages caused by the war: This jacket from 1945 was made with dog hair.Imago
Corresponding collars and hats were popular in England in the 1920s. And during both world wars, owners in Germany were also asked to collect and send in what got caught in the dog brush: the textile industry wanted to counteract the massive shortage of materials with the donations. A dissertation from 2008, submitted by Julika Renger at the Free University of Berlin, even describes how some mistresses even tried to justify the luxurious keeping of a lap dog during the war years with such donations.
I find it incredibly appealing to create something really luxurious through upcycling.
Today the material, which certainly has its merits, has fallen into oblivion. At least almost: In addition to Odély Teboul, for example, the BLESS brand also works with dog hair. The ingenious label, which is based in Paris and Berlin and moves between conceptual art and avant-garde design, had a hat knitted from the precious fibre. In cooperation with the Yarn Sustain project, with which Odély Teboul also collaborates for her crochet sweaters.
Woof and wow: this top by Lou de Bètoly is also made of dog hair.Lou of Betoly
With “Chiengora”, the Berlin-based company sells the world’s first industrially spun yarn based on domestic animal fibers. It is collected from pet hairdressing salons and dog schools, veterinarians and dog associations as well as from private owners. Yarn Sustain spins the combed and donated dog hair into yarn – there is also a sustainability concept behind it. The climate-damaging and mostly unethical breeding of farm animals for the textile industry is hardly acceptable, so the thesis, if there is a resource-saving noble fiber “that is literally at our feet”.
Statistically, there is at least one animal in every second household in Germany, according to the Yarn Sustain project on its website. A lot of hair that is pulled out of millions of grooming brushes and thrown away carelessly year after year. Dog hair has its advantages not only for the environment, but also for fashion and its consumers: Corresponding fibers, which are preferably obtained from long-haired breeds such as border collies, golden retrievers or poodles, are up to 80 percent warmer than sheep’s wool; their grip is comparable to that of Angora.
Known for her unreal, impossible designs: Odély Teboul.Lou of Betoly
The latter can also be confirmed by Odély Teboul, the woman with the jeweled fishnet sweaters. “I would even say that dog hair is a bit fluffier than angora or cashmere,” she says. “But that also has its price.” The rare material that the designer is now devoting herself to is more expensive to buy than the industrially produced classic yarns. Teboul now offers her resulting unique pieces to the shops she works with; but often there are also inquiries from private individuals that she serves – including, for example, the artist duo Eva and Adele.
It’s quite possible that Teboul’s customers, the fans of her eccentric, decadent style, are particularly interested in the unusual yarn. “It’s been around for ages, but it hasn’t been used in a fashion context for a long time,” says the designer. “Certainly also because until a few years ago it wasn’t so popular to process waste products.” In any case, she herself wants to continue experimenting with dog hair, crocheting, knitting and embroidering with it. “I find it incredibly appealing to create something really luxurious through upcycling.”