DNA Proves Your Fancy Suit Isn’t a Fake

Wool from Yorkshire in Northern England is so fabulous that bad guys want to counterfeit it. So wool merchants are shooting it up with proprietary DNA to prove it's the real thing. Applied DNA Sciences provides the anti-counterfeiting service, which involves a proprietary method of injecting the fabric with a unique botanical DNA during manufacturing.

The Huddersfield, UK Textile Centre of Excellence is coordinating the effort to get wool merchants on board with the anti-counterfeiting effort. It's incumbent upon individual wool-purveyors to insert the DNA into their wool. The Center of Excellence has installed a forensic lab to analyze company's woolens and give its stamp of approval. So far participating companies include Dormeuil, Taylor and Lodge, and Holland and Sherry, among others, which supply fabric to some of the fanciest designers around the world including Duncan Quinn and Tom Ford, who made Daniel Craig's suits for Quantum of Solace .

Applied DNA Sciences has sold similar programs to Supima cotton, the wine industry, electronics manufacturers and law enforcement.