Bradford may not be the first place that springs to mind when watching models sashaying down the catwalk in designer creations.

Many won’t remember the city’s status as the one-time wool capital of the world, but Bradford played a significant part, both nationally and globally, in the textile industry’s success.

Stiff competition from overseas has gradually led to the industry’s decline in the city where mills, which once served as workplaces, are now providing a new purpose as homes.

But on Tong Street, one of the main thoroughfares into the city, sits the imposing Halstead’s mill, part of SIL Holdings group, one of the largest speciality fibres manufacturers and merchants in the world.

Halstead’s, with its iconic mansard roof, was one of 30 mills along this stretch during the textile boom. Now it is one of the surviving but thriving few.

The championing of manufacturers such as SIL Holdings, who are responsible for producing high-end fabrics used by some of the world’s leading fashion houses and clothing celebrities, has been made possible in a high-profile campaign launched in Bradford by Prince Charles.

The Campaign For Wool aims to raise awareness among consumers of the many benefits of this natural and renewable fibre which has, in recent years, experienced a resurgence.

While wool has never gone out of fashion, it is fair to say it faced tough competition from alternatives – the fast and affordable fashion you could wear and recycle.

But certainly for fashionistas, wool isn’t a fad. It is a quality investment piece to be kept and, as such, demand is increasing. And not just for clothing – wool is becoming prominent within the interiors market too.

Illustrating the fabric’s importance, and to highlight how this traditional fibre is also applicable to the modern market, SIL Holdings embarked on their first ambitious project with a group of students from the Leeds College of Art.

The brief was to showcase the importance of wool in an exhibition – running this week until Sunday – at one of the region’s most exclusive department stores.

Being offered a window display in Harvey Nichols in Leeds has brought the project a substantial amount of prominence and prestige.

Supported by The Campaign For Wool and launched to coincide with British Wool Week, Wool Yorkshire illustrates the diversity of the fabric and also showcases its renewable qualities.

Sara Duxbury, from SIL Luxury Fabrics, worked with her colleague Jennifer Nickson from contract furnishing and interiors manufacturer, Abbotsford, part of the SIL group, to bring the exhibition to life.

Working alongside Sharon Bainbridge, Sara’s former millinery tutor at the Leeds College of Art, they gave students the freedom to glean their inspiration from seeing the mill’s manufacturing process.

Watching the women working hands-on with the fabrics gave millinery graduate Marie Halewood the vision to incorporate the eyewear they use into her unique, regal-style crown head piece fashioned from recycled textiles and pattern cards.

Marie also created a matching cream stole from the textile waste she saw coming off the machines creating a fringed effect to the tuille underlay.

Fellow student Bonnie Rowntree used her photography expertise to capture film footage of the processes.

Bonnie, a third year photography student, focuses on the delicate elements of the process, such as the hands-on finishing touches to the fabrics destined for high-calibre customers, such as the tailors on London’s Savile Row.

Pictured in his 007 pose, Hollywood actor Pierce Brosnan rests on a window sill in the finishing department, where the fabric for the tuxedo he is sporting was produced – just one of the famous customers the SIL group is helping to clothe.

“The brief we received from SIL came as a thought-provoking statement. ‘Textiles is alive and well in West Yorkshire’,” says Sharon Bainbridge.

“They suggested the students’ responses could incorporate textiles, yarns and other materials from the SIL Holdings group and that their pieces communicate the message that far from being an industry of the past, West Yorkshire textiles are still in demand, world-renowned and exported to all corners of the globe.”

Adds Sara: “Wool Yorkshire brings the fibre into a modern era. It is about putting a modern face on textiles.

“To seek the collaboration of the students was a wonderful opportunity to harness their creativity, while at the same time providing an open and interesting brief and a showcase for their talents.”

Jennifer says Wool Yorkshire has provided a “fantastic opportunity to work alongside the future designers of today, bringing together our well established industry with new innovative ideas and showcasing both textiles and wool in an innovative way”.

“I am amazed by the sophisticated and inventive pieces that have been created in response to our brief to illustrate that ‘Textiles is alive and well in West Yorkshire’. It is really exciting to see our fabrics, yarns, fibres and even textile parts in a completely different way.

“The exhibition not only celebrates wool as a sustainable, versatile fibre, but aims to share with Yorkshire that we are still manufacturing fine quality, beautiful woollen fabrics here, and I think that is something to be proud of and to shout about.”

David Gallimore, managing director of Luxury Fabrics Ltd, part of the SIL group, says the event has given them the opportunity to promote wool, promote SIL group and, with the help of students from the Leeds College of Art, to profile the usages of wool in the exhibition.

“It has given us the opportunity to shout about what is happening in Yorkshire. We are here manufacturing and making some amazing fabrics that we are selling around the world to leading fashion houses and major exporters around the world in Paris, Milan, Tokyo, 46 countries,” he says.

The exhibition will appear at the Knitting and Stitching show at Harrogate International Centre on November 21.