BUYING LOCAL TAKES OFF
Irish-made and eco-aware design has come to the fore during the pandemic, writes Nathalie Marquez Courtney
LIKE every other industry, the design world has spent much of its time recently pondering what the ripple effect of this pandemic will be. Home decor has been going the way of fast fashion with more and more trend-led, but low quality pieces flooding virtual shelves and filling Instagram feeds. Entire rooms are given makeovers with the tap of a button as the Likes rack up.
One silver lining of the Covid-19 crisis is the opportunity to re-think our buying habits. “With this will also come the realisation that the change we seek can come from our actions as individuals for the following very simple reason — every time you buy something, watch something, engage with something, or eat something, you advocate for the provider to stay in business,” wrote Michelle Ogundehin, the former editor-in-chief of Elle Decoration UK and author of Happy Inside, a book that explores the connection between our homes and our wellbeing.
With this shutdown has come a very real chance to reassess what Michelle calls ‘the cult of convenience’ and, as she puts it, recognise that ‘just because we can has never meant we should’.
This translates into a new appreciation for sustainable design pieces, for community-focused makers, and for purchasing goods that support the local economy and don’t harm the environment.
DOING GOOD
We don’t have to look far to find inspiring products and creators. We Make Good is Ireland’s first social enterprise design brand. Through their online store (and, up until recently, a physical shop on Dublin’s Fade Street), they sell a range of Irish-designed homewares made by people from different disadvantaged backgrounds.
“We’re working with about 16 different suppliers,” says co-founder Joan Ellison. “Some are organisations working with people who have come through prison, some are working with people with intellectual disability, Travellers, refugees, people in the deaf community. Anyone who might find it hard to find mainstream work.
“People are interested in knowing there are other options, and especially ones that are made here, made with sustainable materials and are employing people from disadvantaged backgrounds,” continues Joan. “It’s a win-win.”
Last summer, the organisation set up a textile studio to create their own products, working with women who have come through or are still in direct provision and connecting them with Irish designers. This approach benefits the wider design community, but especially younger or emerging designers, as it allows them to create products in a small, scale-able way. “It’s a really nice way for designers to get something on the shelf because we don’t need to make 3,000 of something. We can make 10, or even five to test it and see what works.”
For the last two months, the studio has focused on cloth face masks (with a buy-one donate-one to someone in direct provision scheme), but pre-pandemic they were making a bespoke range of aprons and uniforms for various Irish restaurants.
WASTE NOT, WANT NOT
Sustainable design practices are at the heart of We Make Good, and they often look for ways to make products with ‘anything that’s going to waste’, repurposing materials that would otherwise be destined for centuries in landfill. They collaborated recently with designers at Dublin’s National College of Art and Design to find new uses for old fire hoses.
They’re not the only ones making treasure out of trash. Dublin-based designer Kathryn Davey uses plant materials to dye pure linen and wool fabrics naturally, creating beautiful napkins, throws and table linens.
Her approach — small batch, zero waste and always sustainable — appeals to the fresh interest in more mindful production methods. So much so that Kathryn is now running natural dyeing tutorials online (kathryndavey.com), and is selling a downloadable guide on how to dye materials using avocado stones, which give fabrics a sweet and earthy pink hue.
Galway-based The Tweed Project is also finding ways to innovate with waste. While they specialise in handmade, one-off wearables (all made using luxe Irish tweeds and linens), they’ve been turning leftover fabric into cool cushions and blankets. “Adding tassels, which would normally fall away as waste, as a signature reintegration into the product, gives them texture and depth,” says co-founder Aoibheann McNamara.
Integrating ‘waste’ into something new is an increasingly popular sustainable approach elsewhere too. Belgian brand Ecobirdy creates cute, hard-wearing kids’ furniture using waste from plastic toys while Barcelona-based designer Alvaro Catalán de Ocón’s PET lamp project turns plastic bottles into chic and colourful pendant lights, made by artisans in Colombia.
If you can’t find recycled products, you could look for locally crafted ones. Clare-based knitwear brand Ekotree is working on a range of root- and plant-dyed cashmere cushions, mini travel bottle covers and throws, using all-local materials, which is not only better for the environment, but means they’re not relying on overseas products or affected by interruptions to supply chains.
STORYTIME
And while it can sometimes be hard to spot the ‘greenwashing’ when shopping more mindfully — big brands have been quick to try and cash in — looking for the story behind the product can be a good place to start. Who made this, and why? What do they care about and value and does that resonate with what you care about and value?
“Every handmade product has its own story about the maker, about the making of the product, and how the product came about,” says Joan. “And people really want to know that. In our shop, we always gave a little information card about the makers, because if somebody’s giving an item as a gift, you’re giving someone the gift of the story as well.”
Start with the story, and you won’t go far wrong.