Gostwyck Merino will hold the launch for its new line, henry & grace, on-property on Friday morning, with Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce doing the official honours.

Ahead of the day, business director Philip Attard said it was “very exciting” to show off the range to his guests – and the world.

He said it had been developed to make the best use of the ultrafine, single-farm Gostwyck Merino wool, and scored well in both subjective next-to-skin feel and objective Wool ComfortMeter measurements.

“The experience we’ve had is that as soon as people touch it, they realise they have something very different and very special in their hands,” Mr Attard said.

The babies’ range includes wraps, leggings, T-shirts and bodysuits; the maternity range includes dresses, tops and leggings.

The Friday launch will allow guests to put the garments to the ComfortMeter test.

It scans the surface of the fabric for any thicker fibres, which have the potential to cause skin discomfort.

“If you have a score of 400 or more, it’s going to be much less comfortable, especially if you’re being active or in warm temperatures,” Mr Attard said.

“Below 100 and it’s pretty close to [the feel of] cotton. A lot of our garments are in the 60-120 range...

“We talk about a ‘cashmere feel’ because, as you know, if you grab a cashmere garment, you say, ‘Wow this is soft’ – and this is even finer than cashmere and even softer.”

Mr Attard said the New England was “the premier region” for superfine and ultrafine merino wool, and it was surprising there wasn’t already a local ultrafine merino brand.

“We start testing in the woolshed, making sure the kind of merino we’re using in our selection is extremely fine … and then we keep it that way by not blending it; when it goes through processing it’s kept as one unit,” Mr Attard said.

“A lot of people can produce this kind of wool and a lot of them do up here – and some of them are much finer than we are – but keeping to that quality before you make garments is the trick.

“We’ve been able to do that for a number of years for other brands, so eventually we said, ‘Why don’t we try taking our business a little further?’ and we thought, ‘This is suitable for baby skin – the most sensitive skin of all’.

“We investigated what was happening in the mother-and-baby range, and decided it was a good place for us to try to be.”

Mr Attard said how the wool was produced was just as important as its quality.

Gostwyck Merino has implemented a twice-weekly grazing rotation to be able to greatly reduce parasite burdens and the need for chemicals in treatment and soils.

It has also allowed them to stop mulesing.

“People are demanding now of us: do we mules? If we mules, they don’t want to buy our product. Everyone’s looking for a ‘No, we don’t’ before they commit to the product,” Mr Attard said.

“We look at our sheep twice a week, which means that we can spot any [parasite] issues very quickly and deal with it.

“Because of the grazing system, we don’t have to treat them as often as we used to: we’re now treating them about twice a year, when it used to be every three or four weeks, before.

“The amount of chemical that’s going into the soils is now very, very small and therefore the soils are healthier, the pastures are healthier, the sheep are healthier.”

Friday’s launch will include a demonstration of the website, and a presentation by UNE Professor James Rowe on the importance of Gostwyck Merino’s wool-testing regime. 

UNE School of Business head, Professor Alison Sheridan, will speak about the role of “incubators” in encouraging business innovation, and Mr Attard will address the guests.

Gostwyck was established in 1834 by Henry and Grace Dangar – after whom the new range is named – and is still owned and managed by the fifth and sixth generation of the family.