FARMERS!
Looking for new markets for your wool clip?
Interested in working with local designers?
What
Wool is still produced in the UK in abundance, but it is chronically undervalued, underutilised, as a textile.
The emerging, growing market for locally grown textiles offers opportunities for farmers and growers to diversify into fibre and dye products and for designers to work with regionally sourced materials and dyes.
Future Fashion Landscapes is a research collaboration between Centre for Sustainable Fashion, London College of Fashion and the South East England and South West England Fibresheds. The aim is to support Fibreshed’s mission to revalue UK wool and create short, transparent bio-regional fibre and fashion supply networks with potential for replication.
SEE and SWE Fibresheds have just launched their Farming Fashion: Wool guide that addresses one of the key issues identified in an extensive consultation with farmers, designers, and processors – the lack of links, common language and understanding of each other’s requirements and production cycles.
Through the Future Fashion Landscapes project, we are connecting CSF and Fibreshed networks, using the guide to open conversations and facilitate long-term collaborations between farmers and designers in the SE and SW regions. We are also developing a series of design prototypes and new ways of communicating the qualities and benefits of UK wool, to create proofs of concept for future support and development of bioregional wool supply networks.
How
As the first step, we are convening a series of on-line meet ups to introduce the Farming Fashion: Wool guide and start conversations on experiences, opportunities and challenges between farmers and designers.
The meet ups will be co-hosted by Emma Hague, Director of SWE Fibreshed; Deborah Barker, Director of SEE Fibreshed and Mila Burcikova from Centre for Sustainable Fashion. These will be later followed by in-person meet-ups in Bristol, London, and several farms in the SE and SW regions.
Where and when
The on-line meet-ups will take place on Zoom. To offer flexibility and give everyone who wants to take part an opportunity to join us, we will offer a series of lunchtime and evening sessions between the end of May and mid-June. The in person meet-ups will then take place between July and October 2024 and will be open to all participants of the initial on-line sessions. More information to follow.
How to register your interest
Please e-mail Emma Hague, with a brief response to the following questions:
Benefits for meetup participants
The online meet up participants will get access to the beautifully illustrated Farming Fashion:Wool guide (64 pp) at the printing cost price at £5 + £2.70 postage. Those getting further involved in the project will also be able to benefit from possible presentation opportunities at London College of Fashion, the Design Museum’s Future Observatory, and beyond. We are also keen to identify early on anyone working on, or thinking of developing a relevant project or idea that could put the Farming Fashion:Wool guide to use straight away – for example to support the development of a new farm-fashion collaboration – so that we can follow the journey and document it as a case study to be shared via London College of Fashion, Future Observatory, Fibershed and other high exposure channels.
Photo credits: Joss McKinley Design: Dorte de Jesus
Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), part of UK Research and Innovation.
Learn more about:
Order Fibreshed’s Farming Fashion: Wool guide:
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