About — The Fibre Set

A family history woven with natural fibre.

For over twenty years I’ve tried to buy natural-fibre-only clothing on the high street. I was always surprised at how little the shops distinguished between oil-derived synthetics and natural fibres — styled and sold as though they were the same thing. Online it was worse: the composition buried, vague, or missing altogether.

But the instinct to choose natural was never really a choice for me. It’s simply how I was raised.

I grew up in a mohair family. The Eastern Cape’s Angora goats gave the fibre; my mother, a fashion designer from Germany, built collections in yarn spun and dyed by hand at my father’s factory in Alicedale. High-quality, locally made and natural — it’s the only way I ever learned to buy.

The Barnard family at home in the Eastern Cape — My family, at home in the Eastern Cape.

My father’s original mark — the woven ribbon our family has carried for decades, and the one The Fibre Set still wears.

So I built The Fibre Set: the tool I always wished I’d had, made by someone who has spent a lifetime caring about what cloth is actually made of.

Natural fibres, chosen well. The way I was raised to choose them.Anita Barnard · Founder