Wizard of Ozz
Well-known member
https://archive.is/20251120185248/h...025/11/20/grindr-fashion-show-gay-sheep-wool/
Designer Michael Schmidt is best known for his work in metal. He made chain-mail dresses for Cher, jewelry for his longtime collaborators at Chrome Hearts and a metal gown for Doja Cat that was inspired by Tina Turner (another former client).
But he is also an avid knitter — and so he jumped at the chance to do a collection woven entirely from the wool of gay sheep.
The fashion world has long been obsessed with provenance — say, “pure” “cashmere” spun from the wool of endangered Tibetan antelopesor the vicuna of the Peruvian Andes. The rarer, the more prized (and expensive). But the owners of Rainbow Wool say they have loftier goals than merely providing source material for luxury goods.
As many as one in 12 male sheep are non-procreative but show an — ahem — interest in other rams.
These non-procreative, male-oriented (for our purposes: “gay”) sheep require just as much care and feeding as their procreative peers. But because they don’t produce offspring, some farmers consider them an economic drag. They are often slaughtered.
Michael Stücke couldn’t abide by this. Since 1995, he has operated a sheep farm, which sits on just over 100 acres. He has more than 500 sheep, which he keeps for wool and meat production. “Every animal should be kept in dignity, should live in dignity and will also die in dignity,” Stücke said.
Among those sheep are 35 rescued gay rams. They’re given names such as Marvin Gay and Jean Woll Gaultier. Each can be sponsored via the Rainbow Wool website.
Stücke, 52, relishes his role as shepherd. “Without a guide, the sheep are lost,” he said. “They know my voice. When I call them, they come.”
If you were to imagine a gay German sheep farmer, you might get pretty close to Stücke: tall, sturdy and ruddy, with glasses and a gray goatee. When we spoke on a video call, he wore a pair of green overalls.
Stücke was raised on a farm that slaughtered cows and pigs. “It’s a very intense form of farming,” he said. By the time he was old enough to start his own farm, he had enough of milking cows and slopping pigs. He wanted to broaden his horizons.
“That’s how I fell in love with sheep,” Stücke said from his home in Löhne, a town in the Westphalia region of Germany. He was seated in front of a painting of two smiling sheep nuzzling each other, a wedding gift meant to represent him and his husband, Jochen Klinge.
Designer Michael Schmidt is best known for his work in metal. He made chain-mail dresses for Cher, jewelry for his longtime collaborators at Chrome Hearts and a metal gown for Doja Cat that was inspired by Tina Turner (another former client).
But he is also an avid knitter — and so he jumped at the chance to do a collection woven entirely from the wool of gay sheep.
The fashion world has long been obsessed with provenance — say, “pure” “cashmere” spun from the wool of endangered Tibetan antelopesor the vicuna of the Peruvian Andes. The rarer, the more prized (and expensive). But the owners of Rainbow Wool say they have loftier goals than merely providing source material for luxury goods.
As many as one in 12 male sheep are non-procreative but show an — ahem — interest in other rams.
These non-procreative, male-oriented (for our purposes: “gay”) sheep require just as much care and feeding as their procreative peers. But because they don’t produce offspring, some farmers consider them an economic drag. They are often slaughtered.
Michael Stücke couldn’t abide by this. Since 1995, he has operated a sheep farm, which sits on just over 100 acres. He has more than 500 sheep, which he keeps for wool and meat production. “Every animal should be kept in dignity, should live in dignity and will also die in dignity,” Stücke said.
Among those sheep are 35 rescued gay rams. They’re given names such as Marvin Gay and Jean Woll Gaultier. Each can be sponsored via the Rainbow Wool website.
Stücke, 52, relishes his role as shepherd. “Without a guide, the sheep are lost,” he said. “They know my voice. When I call them, they come.”
If you were to imagine a gay German sheep farmer, you might get pretty close to Stücke: tall, sturdy and ruddy, with glasses and a gray goatee. When we spoke on a video call, he wore a pair of green overalls.
Stücke was raised on a farm that slaughtered cows and pigs. “It’s a very intense form of farming,” he said. By the time he was old enough to start his own farm, he had enough of milking cows and slopping pigs. He wanted to broaden his horizons.
“That’s how I fell in love with sheep,” Stücke said from his home in Löhne, a town in the Westphalia region of Germany. He was seated in front of a painting of two smiling sheep nuzzling each other, a wedding gift meant to represent him and his husband, Jochen Klinge.
