Call out to farmers and designers for online meet ups for Future Fashion: Wool
Photos: Joss McKinley | Design: Dörte de Jesus
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 (CSF), South East England Fibershed (SEE) and South West England Fibreshed (SWE). 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 Dr Mila Burcikova from Centre for Sustainable Fashion, London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London. 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 online 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 2024. 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 (emma@southwestenglandfibreshed.co.uk), with a brief response to the following questions:
FARMERS
Your breeds
Your expected clip this year
Your farming system (e.g. agroecological, organic, conservation grazing, in conversion etc.)
DESIGNERS
Do you use wool in your design practice?
Do you have any experience with soil-to-soil textiles?
Do you currently have capacity for a new collaboration?
Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), part of UK Research and Innovation.
