Shoppers are being asked to swap high street brands for locally made gifts this Christmas in response to rising costs.
Gifted, Ireland’s biggest design fair, returned to the RDS yesterday just in time for the festive season. Visitors can browse craft and homeware gifts from over 500 vendors in the design fair.
CEO of the Design & Crafts Council Ireland, Rosemary Steen, spoke passionately at the launch on how the fair provides a lifeline to local traders, particularly as the cost of living crisis looms. She explained that many craftspeople were only beginning to recover from the pandemic when living costs began to soar.
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Rosemary said: “The pandemic was extremely tough for independent craftspeople, but many, such as ceramists and glassmakers, use equipment such as electric kilns and furnaces at very high temperatures and are feeling the pressure again.
She added: “By buying local gifts, you are helping to support makers to cope with the surge in the cost of energy and materials, on which their business is so dependent, so buying a gift from a local maker is akin to ‘double-gifting’ – to the recipient and to the maker.”
Rosemary is running ‘Made Local, Made to Last’ campaign to entice shoppers to buy local this Christmas. She hopes that raising awareness will help the struggling crafts sector, which employs roughly 105,000 people in Ireland.
The Design and Crafts Council Ireland says that hundreds of retailers and makers are supporting the campaign at a tough time for the industry. Many ceramists and glassmakers in particular are feeling the pinch, as they rely on high energy use appliances to carry out their craft.
Gifted will run until this Sunday and is expected to host a total of 35,000 visitors over the course of the week. The platform will help many independent traders earn some well-needed cash, as €5 million is spent by shoppers in Gifted each year.
Organisers predict that the hectic week long event will generate enough revenue to keep exhibitors in cash for four months.
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