Though it attracted figures from the worlds of stage and screen – notably the British actors Claire Foy and Andrew Garfield – the latest stop on the annual awards season tour had nothing to do with film. In fact, the winners were not actors or directors, nor costume designers or make-up artists, but sheep farmers, all the way from Australia and New Zealand.
Because the prize in question was the Loro Piana Record Bale Award, now in its 25th edition, which is given to the wool producer who creates the finest bale of merino wool in Australia and New Zealand respectively (the unit measurement is microns, a fineness of fibre which is equivalent to one-thousandth of a millimetre). The awards were initiated in the 1990s by Pier Luigi Loro Piana – one of the scions of the Loro Piana family, which started the luxury knitwear brand in 1924 – and the latest ceremony took place in London, with Pyrenees Park farm’s Pamela, Robert and Bradley Sandlant scooping the top prize for Australia in 2023.
