Mencyclopaedia: Woolmark - Telegraph Woolmark is the Australian label that's shear quality. It is the only brand in top-tier men's tailoring and fashion so desirable that every designer you can think of happily has it stitched in their clothes. This label, though, isn't run by some sunglasses-wearing Parisian guru - but by thousands of sunglasses-wearing Australian sheep farmers. The Woolmark Company and its excellent monotone logo (designed by Francesco Saroglia in 1964) are owned by the Australian merino wool industry's trade body. And if you thought this meant simply policing the manufacturers to which it grants permission to use that logo, or engaging in wool-based jamborees such as the National Wild Dog Management Advisory Group, then you'd be barking up the wrong eucalyptus. Knit wits: The Woolmark Prize finalists For these Aussie farmers are extremely active players in the fashion industry. Current Woolmark wheezes include having US fashion wunderkind Alexander Wang photographed by Annie Leibovitz (with a sheep); recruiting Victoria Beckham to judge the 100,000 Aussie-dollar (£60,000) Woolmark Prize (sans sheep), and backing five of London's best menswear designers to use heat-beating "Cool Wool" in their new autumn collections. Just why they go to these lengths used to leave me flummoxed - isn't it self-evident that the enormous Aussie flock whose ancestors came out with the first fleet in 1788 produce tip-top stuff and lots of it? Then I read a ripper piece of research recently prepared for those farmers. Wool production, it says, has plateaued at about 1.1 million tons a year - of which Australia provides about a quarter. But because the merino sheep has a much finer yarn than your average ovine, 90 per cent of "fine apparel" (top clobber) wool comes from Oz. Wool production may be limited by a lack of land and demand for meat, but the human population is booming - and to meet its needs global production of textiles is expected to rise by six million tons every year (75 per cent of which will be synthetics, with most of the rest coming from cotton). So by 2040, only 1 per cent of the world's textile production will be wool, a quarter of it Aussie. Hence merino wool will become an increasingly rare commodity. Another key consideration down on the sheep farms is that 550 million people - about 8 per cent of the current world population - account for half of all the money spent on clothes and shoes every year. And because of ageing populations in high-spending nations such as Japan, Britain and the US, much of that economic heft will increasingly be commanded by the over 50s. Annie Leibovitz shoots Alexander Wang and ram for Woolmark The upshot is that the current £50 billion spent every year on woollen clothes seems set to increase as supply proportionally dwindles. Those Aussies, though, are determined to ensure that demand - and prices - remain healthy. As their agency, Australian Wool Innovation, states: "We seek to position wool at the pinnacle of the fashion industry." This is why you might occasionally see that portrait of Wang and his sheepish pal in glossy magazines, or encounter earnest fluff about Cool Wool, Mercerised Merino (smoother), UV Merino (sun-blocking) and even 3D Merino (good for watching Avatar in). Unlike its cricket team, Australia's sheep farmers aren't prepared to cede their supremacy - around 60 per cent of the levy they pay every year is spent on self-promotion. And although I still reckon much of this is coals to Newcastle (Tyneside, not NSW), their determination is highly impressive. See: To find out more about the textiles, see coolwool.com To find out more about the industry, see beyondthebale.wool.com