Dream weavers: Donegal tweed inspires younger talent to make new ‘music’ in cloth

What goes with jeans, with heels, with wellingtons, long print skirts and dresses? The answer is a tweed jacket. Donegal tweed is a constant source of reimagination and reinvention, with a long heritage in Ireland’s northwest county. It inspires new talent including Leila Worth in Donegal and Caoimhe Dowling in Copenhagen and working with Chris Weineger of Donegal Yarns.
Worth is a young hand weaver, while Dowling is designing coats and separates in distorted herringbone tweed specially woven for her by Woven In the Bone, an artisan weaver in Scotland. Elsewhere Anna Guerin’s Landskein collection reworks a heritage textile in innovative ways.
Weavers making cloth are like musicians, according to Kieran Mulhern of Triona in Ardara, whose family weaving history goes back generations.
“The rhythm and sounds of weaving are therapeutic, melodic and hypnotic. Weavers are in their own world when they are weaving – as much as making fabric, they are making a song, watching the thread and keeping the tension right. It’s about co-ordination, technique, timing and wrist action.”
Anyone visiting Triona’s main store in Donegal will meet 80-year-old weaver Connell Gavigan, at the loom three or four days a week. “He has been weaving since he was 16 and visitors love him – he has such great patience and temperament,” says Mulhern.
When you look closely at their new 11-piece collection, there are patterns, textures and colours with subtle details and flecks not always obvious at first glance.
Known for their coats and jackets in 100 per cent wool and lambswool, Triona’s more luxurious and softer cashmere and merino mix yarns are woven for them exclusively by Hanly & Co in Tipperary.
Designer Emma Quinn, who has been with the company for nearly eight years, is a design graduate of Limerick School of Art and Design and works with Mulhern, his sister Caitríona (after whom the company is called), and their father Denis, a fifth-generation weaver who is instrumental in the fabric selection process.
Mulhern likes to describe the company – founded by Denis in the 1980s in Ardara’s old mart – as a heritage brand with a modern direction. New this season are oversized capacious black twill and belted camel check coats, along with refreshed best sellers such as Triona’s famous Prince of Wales trench coat – called Faye and worn by Sarah Jessica Parker, aka Carrie Bradshaw, in the series And Just Like That – now modernised in navy tweed.
Another best seller is a check coat with raspberry detail, a classic Triona piece. The versatility of these individual items is best displayed when imaginatively styled for autumn or winter weather – a neat blazer with a long skirt, an oatmeal jacket with a sweater in the same tone, a long coat with a printed dress or denim separates – or simply with jeans and chunky scarves.
There is star quality in Magee’s latest tweed collection, drawn from their 150-year-old weaving tradition – last March Hollywood actor Pierce Brosnan visited the shop in Donegal and wore a Melvin jacket and baker cap in Donegal tweed for the cold snap while filming the new Irish romance Four Letters of Love (due for release next year).
Sarah Jessica Parker’s pink tweed coat, which she bought in Magee (€575), sold out after she posted an image of it online.
New this season are some spectacular pieces, such as the long line double-breasted Sophie coat in St Brigid’s Cross weave – a bold, oversized check. Their “work to weekend” separates include a gold-buttoned camel bouclé jacket worn with either a flared mini skirt, lightweight wool houndstooth trousers or jeans. Other coats have raglan sleeves or come in orange herringbone.
Magee’s creative director Charlotte Temple likes “kicking around in the family’s archive” and putting classic fabrics into more contemporary garments.
“My late grandmother Maureen was extraordinary and loved her fashion – and while I was rooting around in her wardrobe I found two jackets in Donegal tweed that were made for her in Dublin in the 1970s – one was in bright pink salt and pepper and the other in a black-and-white Prince of Wales check – and you could wear them today,” she says.
Although Temple prefers the classic black and white, “the love and bravery of my mother Elizabeth and sister Rosy around colour is another source of inspiration. We have so many textures and I happily sit and play with patterns – some are old and I like making them relevant and nice to wear in super-light merino. And a pair of heels never goes amiss.”