A collaboration between five Donegal tweed companies and art and design students at NABA (Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti) in Rome.

Donegal tweed is one of Ireland’s most famous heritage textiles, once described as the most valuable and brilliant facet of the Irish woollen industry. It has been highly prized since the sixteenth century.

It is said that tweed makes the beautiful practical and the Irish landscape. An enduring emblem of the landscape from which it comes, it is interwoven with culture and community and has shaped Irish history and its economy. It is an Irish art form that endures, its cachet on the international circuit continuing to thrive and inspire. In this Wild Donegal Tweed Project, art and fashion students from NABA in Rome worked with five of the principal textile mills in Donegal: a new generation of creatives were introduced to this material. Through “Irish Times” fashion journalist Deirdre McQuillan, the mills McNutt, Magee1866, Molloy & Sons, Triona and Studio Donegal donated their fabrics to a Naba textile workshop. The handwoven, natural and sustainable quality of Donegal tweed appealed to the young people as an alternative to cheap synthetic materials. Tweed cushions 45x45cm were chosen as the ideal form for reimagining techniques such as smocking, embroidery, felting, patchwork, layering and more. Initially presented in the Irish Embassy in Rome by Ambassador to Italy, Patricia O'Brien at a performance event at the Irish Embassy-Villa Spada. It was preceded by a talk on Donegal tweed by Deirdre McQuillan, who has written and lectured extensively on this subject.