Kinsale gears up for Fashion & Farming Festival
Ballymaloe Cookery School's Darina Allen, U2's Adam Clayton; actors and small farmers Jeremy Irons and Sinead Cusack; advocate for native Irish wool, Blátnaid Gallagher; and Irish linen manufacturer, Helen Keyes, will be among the special guests at the Fashion & Farming Festival on May 10-11 in Kinsale.
The inaugural Fashion & Farming Festival will host talks, performances, and food aimed at exploring the connection between what we wear and the earth we share, as farmers, designers, sowers, and growers get together in the Co. Cork port town.
Other speakers lined up include: internationally renowned educator and designer, Alison Gault; The Eden Project’s Tim Smit; MEP and former European Commissioner Mairead McGuinness; French fashion entrepreneur and circular fashion economy expert, Coco Baraer Panazza; and, at the forefront of luxury, publishing and fashion, Mary Fellowes; along with soil experts Henrietta Courtauld and Bridget Elworthy of The Land Gardeners.
The Fashion & Farming Festival is the brainchild of Mareta Doyle, who also founded the award-winning international Kinsale Arts Festival.
She has teamed up with luxury fashion/lifestyle magazine editor, Ciara Hunt, and writer and journalist, Gemma Tipton, to present an event that aims to make a difference.
Doyle said: “Once inextricably linked, fashion and farming are part of our domestic and social fabric, but how we farm and how we create fashion are killing us in today’s world. We believe it’s time to make it better."
"The Fashion & Farming Festival aims to help unify the two worlds of fashion and farming to explore ideas on how to farm sustainably, create new fabrics, and learn new things from older ways of making."
The festival founder has promised "a weekend of conversation, provocation, good food, great ideas, and intriguing fun".
Festival curator Ciara Hunt said: “Clothing is part of the fabric of life, and fashion is one of our primary sources of self-expression. It gives us warmth, safety and joy."
"The world’s fashion and textiles industries are now causing huge environmental damage. Less than 1% of clothing is recycled into new clothing and 73% of the materials used are landfilled or burned.”
According to Doyle: “Fashion and Farming Festival brings some of the foremost proponents from the world of sustainability to show us how we can bring change to our surroundings and make the world a better place for us and future generations."
Farming for nature and the business of fashion and farming are among the sessions scheduled for the weekend.
