Mouton is French for sheep. In the fur trade, Mouton refers to an extremely select pelt of a lamb that has been treated to offer some remarkable properties.

Like all WeatherWool components, our Mouton is pure American. Virtually all sheep that are raised for meat in the USA are processed as lambs at about one year old. The pelts of all these lambs are used for shearling. The pelts that are of the very highest quality, less than 1% of all pelts, are selected for processing into Mouton.

Mouton was originally developed as an alternative to wild furs such as beaver and seal.

There are several steps in the creation of a Mouton Fur. First, the lamb must grade out to ‘Mouton potential’. Only one in one hundred lambs will have the dense, soft, and uniform fleece necessary for Mouton. When the raw pelt is shipped to the tannery, it is graded again, and about 15% of the Mouton candidates are rejected at this point. Acceptable pelts are tanned, then treated to make the wool fibers relatively water-resistant and straight, and extremely soft and glossy. The fleece is also sheared to a uniform length of 5/8 inches (1.6 cm) and dyed. Our favorite color is a rich BROWN, but BLACK, WHITE and GRAY are also available.

Wool, and therefore Mouton as well, is considered by the medical profession to be hypoallergenic.

Mouton cannot be washed, because of the leather, but does resist soiling fairly well. If necessary, it can be cleaned by professionals who launder furs.

Because these are lamb pelts, they vary in size. Pelts average slightly over 10 square feet. We’ll select the nicest pelts in our inventory for filling these orders. But please remember the Mouton is a natural product and there is some variability.

As a customer courtesy, we do offer Mouton Pelts for sale, although people are also invited to contact the tannery directly. For more information, please click over to the Mouton Product page.

4 November 2020 --- Ralph