A Monthly Sustainable Flea Market Is Kicking Off In Dublin

A brand new sustainable fashion flea market is making its way to Dublin city centre.

The aptly-named Sustainable Fashion Dublin Flea Market will be a monthly celebration of sustainable fashion in its entirety – complete with DJ sets, workshops, panel talks, screenings and cocktails.

Every month will see the entire first floor of The Workman's Club filled with stall traders showcasing rails of vintage and secondhand pieces, individuals selling their own preloved gems and local artisan and sustainable vendors.

Whilst the flea market itself will be free to enter, there will also be a range of upcycling workshops taking place throughout the day – costing a fraction of the usual price – which people can buy tickets in advance via the Sustainable Fashion Dublin Instagram page.

At the helm will be Ireland’s finest sustainable fashion purveyors, Taz Kelleher and Geraldine Carton, who have grown synonymous with secondhand delights as a result of their weekly charity shop crawls and swap shops.

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This is a very special appreciation post for a very very special someone... @geraldine_carton Today marks the day I have been dreading for so long, my vivacious, enthuaistic go getter co-founder is moving to Paris. When Geraldine and I set up Sustainable Fashion Dublin in December of last year, I could never have imagined in my wildest dreams that not only would we achieve a quarter of what we have done but also that I would gain a soul mate in the process. SFD has been a joy but it has also been ALOT of work. Since December we've run a dozen swapshops and charity shop crawls as well as sustainable flea markets and upcycling workshops. We've given talks at major companies as well as teaching school students the importance of sustainability. We've spoken infront of 2000 people presenting the ECO-UNESCO Awards and raised much needed funds for Age Action. The most important thing we have achieved however, is building this community of like minded people who want to make a difference. After every event we run, the take away is always how lovely everyone was or how much we appreciate people coming back or how fulfilled we feel having made true friends through this Sustainable Fashion Dublin Community. Geraldine is the backbone of that community, she makes sure everyone who messages us gets a reply, she creates magic thorugh Instagram, she will ask anyone for anything and give anything to anyone. We have such HUGE plans for SFD, Geraldine will be coming back all the time for events, I'll be taking the baton for a while and making sure futher events are bigger, better and always always fun. So Geraldine from all these sustainable fashionistas we wish you the most amount of bread and wine filled luck on your adventure. You are one in a million trillion. Taz xoxo

A post shared by Sustainable Fashion Dublin (@sustainablefashiondublin) on Jun 1, 2019 at 2:49am PDT

Taz and Geraldine are the co-founders of Sustainable Fashion Dublin, an awareness-raising and events platform that aims to highlight the negative effects of the fast fashion industry whilst providing a positive alternative: the circular economy.

"In a time when we are seeing a truck-load of clothing going to landfill/incineration every day; when young people have up to 400% more clothing than their parents did before them – the reality is that we do not need more clothing," according to the pair.

The dynamic duo is fervently passionate about secondhand shopping and proving just how colourful, fun and expressive sustainable fashion can be.

And it looks like they're onto something, as a 2019 thredUp Resale Report showed that the pre-loved market is booming; 56 million women bought secondhand products in 2018, an increase of 12 million new secondhand shoppers from the year prior.

This coincides with what several industry analysts predicted would happen in tandem with the “Kondo Effect" – that fast fashion would eventually slow down.

The first Sustainable Fashion Dublin Flea Market Workshop will see both Geraldine and Taz host a special HOLEY MOLEY Patchwork Workshop.

Attendees are invited to bring items of clothing that have holes in them and learn how to patch them up with pizzazz, colour and style.

Tickets for this – extremely limited – workshop are €15 and will be available from Monday, 11 November. Grab your tickets via the Sustainable Fashion Dublin Instagram page.

The very first flea will take place at The Workman’s Club on Saturday, 16 November from 12 noon to 5pm.