Wrath Avenue

here's one place that will let you see what is available but there are a number of sites -

Charming 1891 Queen Anne Victorian in Minneapolis, MN has 5bds, 2ba, 3,900sqft, $350k. (Zillow's est.: $332,400)

Artwork Copyright © Tyler Spangler

God, yeah. The price of natural-fiber materials is insane.

My average budget for like a full silk gown, trim and notions included, is around $200- and that's ONLY because I live near a discount fabric store that gets bolt-ends from big fashion houses and sells silk for like $10/yard. Wool is insane, for some reason- that place only has coating (heavyweight) and suiting (lighter but feels like plastic even though it's not), so making a dress or anything not outerwear from wool involves shopping online and some painful spending.

I just bought 6 yards of wool to make my Dream Dressing-Gown. It was $210 for JUST the wool- I still have to get lining fabric, possibly an embroidery machine pattern, embroidery thread (because my friend who's generously letting me use her machine only has polyester and rayon). Part of that was shipping from freaking Poland because finding a website that has non-stretch, dark green wool at any weight below "snow gear" in the States is nigh impossible.

(Or that actually discloses the weight in a meaningful way; that's another problem I've encountered. "Brushed wool!" Great, but how heavy is it? "It's wool!" Not helpful. It's like they can't fathom wanting to use wool for anything besides heavy outerwear. Which they probably can't, because that's all we're accustomed to seeing it as nowadays.)

Like I'm tempted to blame militant v*gans for the inaccessibility of silk and wool, but honestly, capitalism was probably just waiting for the excuse to turn all our clothes to crap. I doubt there's been enough outcry about them to push those fabrics out of reach, the way there has been for fur and leather (to clarify: pro-treating animals humanely, anti-plastic clothing, not opposed to the use of aforesaid materials if those animals are properly cared-for and humanely killed).

At least you can still find cotton and some linen things in stores- for now. They're still more expensive, though, and limited in what weaves are often seen. Cotton velvet, for example? Forget it.

if you were to tell someone in the 1880s- or honestly even the 1950s, let's be real -that there was. ONE. fabric store in which you could purchase woolens in ALL OF BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS? they would think you'd lost your mind

there used to be entire shops just for wool fabric. I'm not making that up. there was one in the oldest surviving commercial building in Boston, now a Chipotle, at one point. there used to be a market for it, a system for processing it and getting it to that market. wool used to be a Big Industry

now there is, without exaggeration, one singular place where you can buy wool fabric. in the entire city. and the selection's not even that great- it's almost exclusively suiting, because that's pretty much all we use this incredibly versatile and once-prevalent material for nowadays. you might find some merino base layers for hiking and such and a few tiny, expensive specialty shops online catering to historical costumers, but for society at large...it's just suits and heavy coats. if even that

(and no, don't "but climate change!" me. tropical-weight wool is a thing. wool gauze is a thing. also that's not quite how climate change has worked re: everyday temperatures here in New England. but I digress)

we use it for two (2) things, in the main. there is one (1) shop in which you can buy it, in a major US city

There's several reasons why wool is now comparatively so expensive. You can't automize the most costly part of the wool process, growing the animals. This means that while mechanization has made wool production cheaper, it's never going to be lucrative business as turning oil to fabric or producing cotton with which you can cut the costs of the most costly part (picking cotton) by using slavery. So producers will prefer the materials with which there's room to cut costs and grow profits still a bit more. This also makes wool more profitable, so it's a win-win situation for them. Because there's less wool on the market, it has higher demand compared to the supply, meaning they can ask higher prices. It's not a bug, it's a feature.

Wool is almost a by-product of the meat industry, like leather is. Sheep are not reared for their wool. They grow it anyway, and you literally have to shear them for welfare reasons, or this happens (or if you're unlucky, this WARNING: GROSS)

The bit that you really can't mechanise is getting the wool off the sheep. It's skillful, back-breaking work, and looks like this:

Yes I will have to clean and comb and process it. No I cannot spin very well and my weaving skills are mid at best. But WOOL.