Get Your Tweed Jimmy Choos
Keith Duffy of Irish boyband Boyzone fame and his wife Lisa recently took part in the launch of some new, Irish inspired Jimmy Choo boots at Brown Thomas in Dublin. (Brown Thomas, by the way, is an upmarket Irish department store in Dublin, Cork, Galway and Limerick.) The limited edition boots were designed with Donegal tweed (the hand-woven woolen tweed fabric designed to incorporate colors from the Donegal landscape). The Breidin boot is a cuffed ankle boot available for €825 and the Twillen, a riding boot with tweed inlay, can be purchased for €795. The prices are shockingly high (although somewhat to be expected with the Jimmy Choo brand) but the good news is that one quarter of all the boots’ proceeds will be donated to the Irish Autism Action.
Since the boots were designed to be uniquely Irish using Donegal tweed, this got me thinking about the handwoven fabrics of Ireland. Sure, I associate these fabrics with the country but I don’t exactly know why or what the history is there.
Fabric has been an important part of Irish life for an extremely long time – both just simply as clothing and then on a bigger scale in terms of cloth as a commodity. In fact, the earliest woven material in Ireland dates back to 1600 B.C. Apparently a piece of pottery from that time was found with a rendering of cloth. What’s more is that a piece of cloth was actually found in an Antrim bog from 700 B.C.!
Throughout history, there were two forms of hand weaving: Hand weaving in the rural parts of Ireland, like work done in the home and for the neighbors, and then there was hand weaving organized as an actual craft with fabrics woven for the larger domestic market and export.
What’s interesting is that during the end of the 17th century (mind you this a long time after weaving started in Ireland), there were actually laws restricting handwoven fabrics to be exported from Ireland. Consequently, the craft almost died out during this time yet in places like Mayo, Galway, and Donegal hand weaving was still present. These restricted laws were later changed in the 19th century and the weaving industry expanded once again. Incredibly, today the weaving looms in places like Donegal are almost identical to what was used all the way back in biblical times.
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that was REALLY interesting. what were the reasons they banned handwoven fabrics?
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