Lotta misinformation in this thread trying to claim that wool doesnt keep you warm when it is wet, and I can say from first hand experience that it most certainly does keep you warm when completely soaked through. Sheep should be shorn humanely and it is possible to do, but corporations and capitalism have no incentive to do it. Here is an indepth article explaining the science behind how wool keeps you warm when wet. And Here is anothet article

Big Wool. Silly

Big plastic challenges big wool in the thunderdome. 2 enter but we all lose no matter what choice you make. Just go naked people or are you all part of the big clothes conspiracy?

It is a pretty good article but I have some nitpicks:

They say both that you cannot decide in a vacuum and fast fashion uses synth materials to make disposable clothing. I think given these two ideas, the carbon usage for one garment of wool vs one garment of nylon should include all the “waste” garments produced as well. Since, when you buy from a company that practices this, the impact is from the whole process, as they are keen to point out. That includes the sweatshop to landfill garments.

Personally I like not wearing a microplastics generator.

I am also curious about hemp clothing.

I love how American journalists decide to demonise an industry by putting the word ‘Big’ in front of it.

The article makes a lot of mistakes, because I don’t think that the author actually cares about textiles at all.

Cotton is not comparable to wool at all. Full stop. If you wear wool for technical reasons–like, because you want to stay warm–then you need to know that cotton will kill you, as will all cellulose fibers that aren’t treated to be hydrophobic. Petroleum-based fibers like polyesters, nylons, etc., do not wet the same way that cotton does, but also don’t keep you warm in the same way that wool will. Wool is the gold-standard for cold-weather outdoor apparel.

Tencel–which is a type of rayon–is considerably weaker than cotton when it gets wet. The process for making rayon is usually–but not always–a very polluting open-loop system. There are closed-loop systems, but they weren’t in common use as of 2010.

Leather is irreplaceable as a protective material. Synthetic leathers lack the abrasion resistance and/or heat resistance of leather. Compare a pair of high-quality leather boots to the highest quality non-leather boots; leather will last decades longer. So you can’t compare on a per unit basis; you need to compare them based on practical lifetime costs. In regards to certain protective apparel–such as motorcycle gear–textile jackets simply do not provide the same level of repeatable protection as leather. If you ride your bike on a track, you will be required to wear leather.