#49 - Reporting from the Faroe Islands Gudrun & Gudrun & Snaeldan Spinnery

In this cinematic, on-the-road episode, you’ll hear all about the wool and shepherding industry in the Faroese Islands or Faroes (Føroyar). You’ll get to hear a spinning machine, special background music from the feat-of-modern-egineering underwater tunnels, reports from the traveler’s log in the ferry cabin, and spontaneous interviews with shop owners and workers. You’re going to love it! 

Featuring Johanna from the Snealdan Spinnery and CEO Guðrun Rógvadóttir from Guðrun & Guðrun hand-knit wool fashion brand.

Find more info and pictures from my travels on the episode website. 

LINKS FROM THE EPISODE

Google Results: Floortje Naar Het Einde Van Het Wereld  

CONNECT WITH [GUEST]

https://snaldan.fo/

https://www.gudrungudrun.com/

https://www.navia.fo 

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 You know me as a guide, mentor and teacher, but I've also set off on a new adventure, coaching. Coaching gets a bad rep sometimes, but when it's done right, it can be really transformational. As part of my coaching education, I'll soon need to do real coaching sessions. And it could be a really great opportunity for you to experience it at no or low cost. If you've ever been curious about working with me in this way, now's the time. Just send me an email: info@ja-wol.com

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Transcript

Saskia de Feijter: 0:04

Hi, my name is Saskia. I've got over a decade of experience in running a small business in the needle craft industry. I'm obsessed with the healing magic of crafting and the power of community. dreaming big about a world where we rely on value based businesses, the kindness economy, and where we can fully say, Fuck fast fashion. A smaller life aims to inspire you to look at your wardrobe differently. Where do you buy? How do you use your clothes? And can you make some of it yourself? We learn from experts in the needlecraft textile and creative industry big names and small about what it's actually like to run a small business. I'm educated in marketing and photography, and learn to do everything else on the job selling patent and product design, teaching and running a needlecraft school. As a small business owner you're in charge of everything, branding, marketing, selling, promoting and cleaning the loo emotional talks with sellers about wins and woes, product and design conscious decision making, why we do it, how we do it, and what we need to become the future of fashion without burning the health apps. And I'm determined to lift our Cena for the world to notice so they can step away from fast fashion it is 722 I am in a German hotel room. While my team is listening in on me. We are on our way to the ferry in the north of Denmark because we are going to the fairer the footer the Faroese islands, and I'm super excited about it. Hi, welcome back or Welcome to a smaller life. I'm so glad you are here. Because today I have something special, something different, something I haven't done before. And it's going to be cool. So as you might or might not know, I record my episodes ahead of time, because this helps me to organize my life and I feel less stressed whenever an episode is due. So the downside of that is that it goes live sometimes a few weeks after I recorded and in this case, it's been more than a month ago, because this episode is different than every other episode I've done before. And so me and Alison the editor had a little bit more work putting it together. It was my first time as a reporter on the road. I bought a special microphone cuz I wanted to do this but it was the first time I actually did it. I didn't write a plan. I just took my mic and I went with it. For this autumn break, our family took a trip or rather a voyage to the Faroese Islands The further they're a group of 18 islands somewhere between Iceland and Denmark. They are a self governing nation under the external sovereignty of the Kingdom of Denmark. They're very remote, the weather is wet and cold. There's mountains and sheep. And I would say not much else. But that's not fair because I saw a lot more than that. But that's the first impression beautiful nature, sheep, remoteness and rain and wind. It took us actually three days to get there a day of driving two days on a ferry. And then we were there. We're going to have to set off this traveling with some other decisions we make as a family because it was definitely not the most sustainable way to travel. There are almost no trees in the islands. And because there are so many sheep, a lot of the Laura has changed over the year. So we really do love shape, but they can have devastating effects on a landscape as they did in the history of Scotland, which is a whole different interesting topic to talk about. But staying on the islands. You probably know what puffins are. They're They're cute is birds. They kind of look like penguins in a way they they have this really cute Walk. And for some reason, I traveled to countries where there's puffins that I've never ever seen one. puffins were a big part of the diet, actually, in the footer, people would do very, very dangerous things and climbing Cliff hanging to get to them. Times have changed, and since puffins were becoming less and less in amounts on the islands, they have stopped eating them. They still however, eat the sheep, and sheep's had is a very normal dish on the menu, which was kind of a weird thing for me. And it reminded me we all live in our own bubbles. I'm always very interested in the different cultures and different ways of doing things. And being a city girl or woman, city woman, eating mostly plant based no meats, sometimes fish. This was a very interesting to me, I remember from my youth that my grandparents would eat things that we my friends now Don't eat anymore, like things really, really change and especially where where I live. So having sheep's had for dinner is kind of strange to me. But then again, I don't live on an island where importing is expensive, and not a lot of things can grow. At one point, we visit a village and there were sheepskin, lying around. And it was a really cute little village. And then I looked around and I saw blood coming down the stream. And I'm like, Am I in an episode of The Killing what's going on? And yes, it was slaughter season. So they were actually slaughtering the sheep. I think it's really healthy, and also privileged to be able to step out of your bubble and have a different view on daily life in different places in the world, and reflecting back on your ideas about living a good life and what that means and it is just very enriching. But I did really try hard to not let my daughter see some of these things as a vegetarian and kind of a sensitive kid. I don't want to share with her for everything. But I thought the image of sheep had hanging on the side of a house might not be the best thing for her at that moment. But we did have a discussion about this later on and why it's different to be living on an island and imports, exports all of those things, and arguably much better way to harvest meat small and local and more honest in a way. Absolutely all due respect for everybody who has different opinions. This is just my experience of the moments and it was eye opening. The main language is Faroese and Danish is also taught in schools. Faroese actually descended from Old Norse and is most closely related to Icelandic. I think I'm pretty good at languages but I thought this was a really hard language. Sitting in the hotel listening to the Danish and the Faroese language being spoken, I had all of a sudden become much better a Danish. For some reason, it was really easy to understand next to the fiery, so it's weird how that works. A large number of the population is considered conservative, and we still managed to find a restaurant called circus, which was very LGBTQ, plus friendly, and they now have their own version of pride. So things are really changing. We had a lovely time at Circus and the bar lady mix me up meaning old fashioned, which was great, thanks again. I cannot leave this unsaid. There is a cultural thing that is called getting that job, which is actually the hands on pilots, whales, this is legal. And a lot of animal rights groups don't think this is necessary anymore for food reasons. So the amount of whales that are hunted are not considered to have a significant impact on the pilot whale population. But it is still a discussion that's being held in and outside the community of the Faroe Islands. Then back to the sheep. And now in terms of crafting, there's a lot of knowledge on the island that goes back ages. There's loads of crafts that they excel at knitting, lace knitting embroidery Really sewing. They have some beautiful national costumes. And the knitting is amazing. The tradition of making the national costume is very important because it binds families and they pass on the traditional crafts, and reinforce the pharaohs culture in the traditional village life and in the whole of society. So it's very, very beautiful and interesting to see. I also have to say something before we start the sound recordings, because we're going to start off with a piece of music. And this music is something special. When you drive through one of the many tunnels, you can tune your radio to a specific station, and you'll hear specifically composed music for the tunnel. It's beautiful. I hope you love it to the fairies love tunnels, the 18 Islands have 53,000 inhabitants, and 20 tunnels, and most of them are some of them are really long and under the sea. So it's pretty cool. They actually built a tunnel quite recently to reach a village of less than 100 people like I don't even know but there's almost nobody there. But the difficulty with the coastline is that it really has the steep cliffs so boats cannot actually get to a harbor or anything. So the only way to get there is over lens. And because there's mountains and it's just complicated. There's actually one islands where just two families live and the only way you can reach them is by helicopter. We have a Dutch TV show that's called floor churn that I have on the vehicles. Floor to Destin is actually visiting people that live very remotely. And if you want to see that you can find it online. In this particular tunnel. There's actually the first undersea roundabout I'm going to share some pictures in the show notes so you can see what I'm talking about. It has been a long time dream of mine to visit the islands as I have sold yarn from there in my shop, the brand Natvia and why they got new magazines and with pictures of the model showing the patterns of the typical fairways designs in the landscape and the remoteness of it all it has always fascinated me. And for some reason I have a love for remotes and cold and wet islands. I don't know why. And I watched the Danish murder mystery the killing years ago. And the main character, several loons is wearing her iconic knit sweater. It's a white sweater with the black northern stars across it like big ones. And this one was very popular in and beyond the knitting community. Since then, I've learned that this design was made by Gudrun and Goodrem a design duo from the islands, I will try to pronounce it right but no promises go on, or Google or something like that. And I actually talked to one of the good drones. And I interviewed her so Lauren that later, it really was a learning curve to do this reporting style recording, because I thought I'd wing it. But then I also did some work beforehand. I did send out a couple of emails asking people if I could talk to them. When I was visiting the island, one of which was Fiona, who I bought the yarn from that I sold in my shop, I did meet up with her and her husband in the hotel bar. And we talked a lot about the islands and the culture and living there. How the knitting world there is compared to the rest of I don't know, Europe, I guess. But I couldn't interview in a bar. I do really want to take a moment to thank Daniel and Fiona, for talking to me about living on the island and their work as yarn cellos and how they lived there for years, then returning to the UK and now they're back there. So they gave me a good idea of what it's like to live there. Let me share this piece of texts that I read in the museum. There's approximately 70,000 sheep in the Faroe Islands. When I first recorded this I said 7000 My mistake half of the sheep are owned by farmers the other half by private persons. Faroese sheep keeping is mostly a hobby, not a way of life. Today sheep are raised for mutton, the meats, not wool. According to old traditions and written records, fairway sheep graze outside all year round, interchanging between the infield and outfield depending on the season. This Shepherd rarely needs to see the flock besides when the sheep are driven to the sheep fold. During summer and autumn, how to best organize sheep keeping in the Faroe Islands has become a hot discussion topic amongst farmers, shopkeepers and scientist is the current coordination of sheep keeping sustainable when considering climate change, animal welfare and possible damage caused by sheep grazing, sheep keeping is quite traditional. But adjustments have occurred in the past, going back 150 years, the driving of sheep to the sheep fold in summer and autumn was very differently organized. And today, the main reason being a shift in focus from wool production to mutton was an extremely valuable assets that no one could afford to waste. So the sheep were driven frequently during the summer period. So this is very interesting because also talking to good room from Good morning good room, the value of wool has changed so much over the years, even in these areas, I've talked about this in my area, where in Holland where wall gets burned, and there is no value. And if you want to know more about that, you can listen to episode 47 with Jana hope at the holons Volk collective. So even though there's this focus on there's a, there's more sheep than people there, and still the same kind of things happen as here in my area. So we can be very, very different, and also have the same kind of problems living in a remote area won't save you from sustainable sheep keeping, thinking about ways to do things better for the environment, and for animal welfare, and all of that. So this is what I'm taking away from my visit to the islands is that opening up my eyes, and at the same time, connecting with a different culture, a different way of looking at things, it can all happen in the same place. So, so much respect for their wisdom, and their knowledge, and the beauty of the nature and the wonderful people there. It was a really, really amazing time. So let's go I hope you will enjoy my report of my trip to the Faroe Islands and let me know if you want me to do more reporting. Okay, this is the quietest place I can find. I mean, my cabin on Snoodle nine on our way to the Faroe Islands, there's so many ways to pronounce it into say it I don't even know the Faroese islands, the footer, were going that way. I wasn't feeling too well, an hour ago or something. And we have medication for feeling sick on a boat. And so I took half a bill and I laid down and I slept for half an hour or so. And now I feel a lot better. My family has gone upstairs to the bar to play game. They don't want to see I don't think I'll have another moment by myself. We're on the boat for a long time. I think it's going to be 30 hours all in all, it's two nights, two nights and two and a half days. It's going to be on time. I have my meeting. I have a book. The kids have drawings, homework, books, to read games to play. So there's enough to do time goes by really fast. On board. There's different things you can do. As a cinema, there's a game room, you can go on deck and have a little bit of a walk around all those kinds of things. We have restaurants, there's a cafe and a cafeteria. And then there's some sort of a library slash coffee shop. quite curious of what we will find and see and experience and also the nervous as I was about going to the boat. We were okay. It's a little bit as there's some waves, but I caught him through words. So It could be a lot worse. So, so far, so good. And then what's really fun is that here on the book, I've seen at least six other people knitting, which is great. People are wearing hat knits, or hadn't it chars. It's really awesome. They're definitely not all traditional Faroese NetWare but you can tell that people on these boats, most of them are Norwegian, Danish or German. I've heard one Belgian family for no other Dutch people, which is nice for a change as we seem to be everywhere. Just it's really calm, people are talking and soft and slow voices. And it's definitely a different experience from the ferry to the UK, which is much more of a party vibe, I would say not necessarily like crazy party, but the vibe is definitely different. And they have a shop here on the ship with a whole like area of wool, like now via a wall shop on board, which is pretty awesome. I mean, I've seen wall shops in supermarkets in the UK and in Scandinavia, but on the boats, that's the first so that's really cool. Okay, I'm gonna leave it at this. And I hope that sound quality is good. And I'm understanding my new microphone, it seems okay. But it also seems a little bit soft. So we'll see if it gets better. The first knitting related visit was to Navya I entered a beautiful shop that not only had an array of yarns, but a lot of knitwear. And actually also other clothes. It was a very beautiful shop in the basement were knitting machines. And I talked to the sister of the owner, I wrote down her name on a piece of paper, and I lost the piece of paper. I'm so sorry, she was very, very friendly. But they just recently did a photoshoot for the new pattern book. And so they were very busy. And I actually had all the information I needed before I asked her if I could record some questions with her. And then she said that they were too busy. And I wish I asked her before so we kind of said that we would do the interview at another time while I was on the island, but I never got round to doing that. I'm going to just send her an email. And we can do this interview another time. And so you have something else to look forward to from the Faroe Islands, but then recorded remotely this time. After visiting Natvia we drove through a town where we found one of the places people sell their knitwear that they make at home. It's basically a community effort people knit items and then sell them within the community or for tourists. So we saw one of those shops and it was closed but I took some pictures of the window so you can see that in the show notes. And right after our visit there we went to the Snellen Spinnery where they spin yarns from the island but also actually other fibers so I talked to a very lovely lady there and you'll hear her explain more

Unknown: 24:51

Yeah, he has this and the way and but he was also the spinner so he's everywhere. He's very busy now. We try to help him where we can Yeah, and how many people work here on Yeah, it's two my seven seven No, we're seven there but one we have also store in social Yeah, well, there's one so we are a seven here hear.

Saskia de Feijter: 25:27

So when the when the owner

Unknown: 25:29

gets sick or when something happens he has to teach another person how to work with a big machine. Yeah, we have said he should teach somebody. Yeah. And it's so

Saskia de Feijter: 25:40

complicated. I had a small meeting machine at home. I didn't even try it was too complicated and it was made for consumers.

Unknown: 25:47

So so this is also everything combat machine. This is navy and Pink and green. Yeah, yeah. So we tried to put some colors. We have learned learned about color theory. Yeah, theory to try something. So sometimes it doesn't work sometimes. Way to contrast I really like that like that the patterns are all traditional. Everything. Yeah. We only you from the tradition? Yes. Yeah, we don't do anything but just the shape. A little bit more modern these days. Yeah. I like the pink and Yeah. It's so fun to see that it's not a big area that you need. Yeah, machines. The sample the so so why we don't do the yarn into so we can use it to me right away. Yeah. So we need to do the building bit. Everything. But someone is very glad that we don't have it because many are calling the yarn. work. I also dyed yarn myself. And it's extra work to take it off the coast of thing they call a case. And also when it's on a hank or a scheme like use of it. It's more relaxed. So when it's one job, it gets tighter. Yeah. And then you don't get really good knitting results. So it's all good. Yeah. So yeah. And the coffee machine is the Rhonda 1950s for the carding machine in the spinner. Yeah. So yeah. Usually those old machines they last a long time as you can keep repairing them. Yeah. And the owner knows how to do it. Cool. Yeah. So now we're in that knitting shop. And there's also another knitting shop in Persia into ourselves. Yeah. So here, we didn't have a story here about the men who want to visit us. So yeah, just a little shock pair. But the big story isn't. So the locals, they shop mostly wintertime. And here's tourists, but also the who live here. Says lovely lovely sweaters here in the shop. All the different kinds of colors. And then also the knitting guarantee. You have different weights thicknesses of yarn. Yeah, we have one to five here, but we also have 100 to three.

Saskia de Feijter: 28:35

And that's interesting for me, because I don't mind that it's not soft. So for me, the local the more local, the better. Yeah, but I think a lot of tourists like so. Yes.

Unknown: 28:46

Right. Yeah. So mostly. But they also want a little bit of it, so they know what the 100% your own. Smells like.

Saskia de Feijter: 29:00

Sheep mixed with spinning oil. Yeah. Yeah. And like then there's different natural colors. Dark brown, light gray, dark gray, light brown. Why it's very dark brown. And then a green.

Unknown: 29:16

Yeah. Why they do agree with me for Christmas. So they pick up the colonists from the sheep, and then it's been there together like they sorted in other groups. Washington. What is the mixture of the fibers? It's fair, reasonable and what else is not fair? Is it the mix it with the parent is but we have some complain about it. So they are picking it out. So we do everything here in this world is very good. So yeah, so this speciality of Snellen writes. Yes.

Saskia de Feijter: 29:58

Is that everything is produced here. Only some of the yarn comes from some of the wool. Yeah. comes from that. Now I forgot

Unknown: 30:08

about islands. Falklands. I always forget. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And is this also died here? No, it's in England.

Saskia de Feijter: 30:18

In England. Yeah. Cool. Nice.

Unknown: 30:22

If we should do it in the Faroe Islands, we also need to pick a bigger building. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So okay. Yeah. Have to be practical. Yeah. All right. Now it was working. Well, we know how what the views in it is not too many other chemicals. Okay. Yeah, we try to have it as green as possible. Yes. Cool. Thank you so much.

Saskia de Feijter: 30:50

For your time, okay.

Unknown: 30:51

What was your name? Yahama. Yeah, Thank you

Saskia de Feijter: 31:12

in the capital of tours haven't I went into the good running Gudrun shop, which is lovely, it is a design. It's fashion design, something you would expect in Copenhagen, or Stockholm or London or whatever. Very, very amazingly beautiful knitwear design. I loved this conversation. And I usually don't fan girl a lot, but I kind of fan girls over this business. I loved everything about it, but you're gonna get the interview and listen, and I hope you love it as much as I did.

Unknown: 31:51

So you're gonna do now a podcast from the Faroe Islands where you're talking to different people, right? Yes, but

Saskia de Feijter: 31:57

it's, it's a little bit mixed. Different things in the sounds are different. I'll have the sound from the tunnel. And then I talked to a lady at Snowden, and then kind of mix things together. That's the idea. So can we start want to talk a little bit about the brands and how you pronounce it and which one of the good rooms you are and who's the other one? If we can start there, that would be great.

Unknown: 32:23

The name is difficult to pronounce. In English, it's grown and go long. It's spelled with the first letter and then the silent. So if nationally typical of people will say go to and then go drunk, but actually it's gone on and Google. The name came from the two of us starting the company. The two founders are just Goro Elko. Yeah, I am. I have a completely different background. I studied political science. I was partner in a consultancy, working with European Union projects in Eastern Europe and very much in the Middle East as well. And the other coatroom goes through Ludwig, she's the designer, she's trained designer in Denmark, and she was living in Denmark for many years and working with Sabina Carbonell in Copenhagen as well known designer. So that's that's the background for the late. We already have 20 years anniversary this year.

Saskia de Feijter: 33:16

20 years. Wow. Congratulations.

Unknown: 33:19

Thank you. Yeah. When we started our company, we're a specialist in Health Net. It was not smart to knit adults. It was quite uncool. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it was like Ranma thing. But Google figured out that she wanted to find her niche. We met in there in 2000. And we just clicked and I saw something she was amazing. Doing and she saw she needed some help to get out there. So we started working together. And we attended the first fashion fair in Copenhagen in 2002. And we brought some lamp skins. And some as long as for us well, like the background for starting the company was that we find it a pity that the fairway small and the fairways lambskin are not being used. A lot of the world has been burned, is still being burned. So during summer, you can see big bonfires with bull. And they during the autumn during slavery and time, a lot of the lamp skins are just destroyed, because there is no market for it. So like, basically, our main mission was trying to make use of the resources, the the sheep are all here for fruit. But there are a lot of extra resources that we tried to use.

Saskia de Feijter: 34:36

I'm amazed hearing this because in Holland, it's the same thing. The sheep that we have are also kept for meat for food. And we have the exact same problem. I just recently finished writing about this problem, because different businesses come into it thinking, well, this is really cheap material, we should do something with this and and there's different kinds of people that that step into that people that see an opportunity and don't really know how to market than people that know the markets, but are not that business savvy. And hearing you say that you are here for 20 years is that you have definitely tapped into a niche and found your buckets. We have a designer Christine MINUSMA. And she's more of an artist in a way that she does projects surrounding wool and showing people the value of it. And I think she took one sheep and made a sweater out of one sheep. And now she also does some other amazing things just as a background story. But we have a shepherd in Rotterdam like a major city and the sheep are there for grazing. So this artist took the wool of the sheep from one season and now she's grading it into different qualities and it turns out it's really theirs. really good quality in there as well. This is also the reason that the podcast exists to show people that hand knitting and hand stitching and materials like wool is so valuable and we have something right under our noses that can be a counterbalance to the fast fashion industry. But it's I thought this was wool was a part of the Faroese culture knitting

Unknown: 36:21

yeah if you go it's like the first export ever from the Faroe Islands you have like writings back from 1500s Yeah that the first fair was export was fair with socks, a hand knitted socks sweaters as well. And at that time it was really really important we have the same that the wallets the gold of the pharaohs Yeah. But at the time, when we started, it was a time of like, the economy was good. People look away from the Faroe Islands look for new materials, new ways of living, they wanted to use gore tex instead of using the lanolin and they in the in the in wall as water repellent. And so there was a different time there was a different time so we really went against the trend when we started. And it took some time also to convince people that there was something in it when they're when we were featured in the first Vogue Italia people starting might be something Yeah, maybe it's not that bad. And from there we have been very, very happy now to have very big loyalty from the Faroe Islands as well yeah to hear that, but the thing was different was small that we have this special breed that has developed through 1000 years on the Faroe Islands and as you experienced yesterday, it can be extremely wet. So they have developed this double layer of wool with very harsh wool on the outside that is water repellent and the very soft wool on the underside to give it a war Yeah, in all times UK you can separate the two layers but it's extremely labor intensive Yes. And there is no machine developed to do it. My gosh, because the Pharaoh was breed is so specific. Yeah, of course if this was like the case for all sheep in the world, of course the machinery would have been developed Yeah, but it's not because it's a specific thing for the machine. So what what we do when we do yarn we put everything together Yeah, makes it not us. He is just the outer part but not soft as the other part. So it's there's there's something in between and like in that spectrum of being very soft and very he I guess we are from a one to 10 We are an eight nine.

Saskia de Feijter: 38:45

Yeah, in tennis he Yeah, to be

Unknown: 38:48

honest, yes, but there are some special qualities here with the Federalist wall, it's you can use it like without any kind of treatment is just washed really softly and you don't use any chemicals in the Fair was cheap I spotted so you can just divide the colors so you can use the colors ser so that it's not even diet, right. So that's very special and it holds a lot of lanolin because this is also something they have developed to survive the wet weather so if you if you take some of this yarn or some of this garment and you smell it, you can still smell the lamp and I love that's what I really like. And the colors are very very specific. I have tried with different yarns to pierce a lot of people do find it too itchy to find alternatives but there is no such white color as the color of the white color of the fellowship. There is no such dark brown color as the one we have here. And I have tried a couple of times that they have tried to fake it that some of the producers said Oh, we didn't have enough dark brown. We put something in Yeah, yeah, I will never forget to did it. And I will never forgive them. I know and they don't even try to cheat me on that one.

Saskia de Feijter: 40:02

Yeah, I've experienced that in the shop with a French brand who shall remain unknown after they saw natural colors and black is no like black black is another national color. And they had black so they dyed it Yeah, I know these things. Yeah. But how about the designs let's talk a little bit about the designs. What is the specific design features? Look, how do you stand out if we're looking for a design of yours? What do we see?

Unknown: 40:33

The most famous sweater we

Saskia de Feijter: 40:35

have? I wasn't gonna bring it up you

Unknown: 40:39

because we are we are proud of it. Not only because of the killing Yeah, but it was us whether or not made for the killing. It was one of our designs and that we found that very good design. And the story behind it is also really interesting going to see my sweater for that and did try to scrape it down, scrape it down, scrape it down until it was completely naked. Usually in a seamless way to do a lot of colors, she would choose one base color and one color pattern. If you choose one of the patterns at the start to make it simpler and to make it more clear, and she wanted to make it a more feminist, whether that also could be used by urban women. Yeah, so she made the raglan sleeves. So it's easier to wear onto a small jacket, for example, she made the neckline as a turtleneck instead of a big neck and to wear. So it's easier to wear also inside. Yeah, so that was actually the sweater we presented on affair and the stylist from Dr came and they fell in love with it and the art the extra fell in love with it. And then there's like the whole story of how this product placement just went really crazy.

Saskia de Feijter: 41:47

And that's amazing for small business, the power of that I was not going to bring it up because I thought I shouldn't think I should ask. But you think that sometimes if if an artist has a hit, they're like, no, no, I have new creative things that that are going on. But this is

Unknown: 42:05

what that's why it's still a really good seller. And yeah, and also to people that they never knew about the killing. It's like selling well, in Japan, for example, I don't know what to kill it.

Saskia de Feijter: 42:15

But it's a very modern design that still breeds the traditional. It's a really good design. Yeah.

Unknown: 42:22

And it's also part of the permanent exhibition at the Danish design museum as Nordic heritage. But apart from that, we have a lot of different other things. What good from the designers really known for is her sense of combining colors, a lot of different colors, and a lot of different materials. And so she can use something very, very thick yarn together with a very thin yarn, and to play with the materials and play with the colors. We do not only use her with yarn, the Ferris yarn is twitchy too for a lot of like the more inner layers. We always use natural materials, certified mohair from South Africa, we use alpaca from Peru, and we want to buy the the materials from the place where they make it. So we don't see the idea of buying a parka in Italy, Italians have bought the raw material from Peru really cheaply. Yeah, then they make the money or sell it to us. So we would like to go directly to the base. So the money stay where they have the materials. And we even have like a women's empowerment project in Peru where then if a lot of the alpaca for us. Yeah, it's

Saskia de Feijter: 43:35

a little bit about that, because I love the fact that you take out some of the chains because of the bunny. But also, if you think about the environments and shipping everything all over the place and taking away the chains.

Unknown: 43:54

Hi there,

Saskia de Feijter: 43:55

it's just me, I hope you are enjoying the interview. Just wanted to talk to you directly for a second. I've been recording the podcast for two years now. And I hope I've been giving you lots of value and some inspiration. If you are ready to give back. I have a few ways you can do that. You can go to www dot Yeah, hyphen bowl.com and subscribe to my newsletter, you can become an active member of our yovel online community and work at your sustainable wardrobe, or get mentoring for your small business in our BBB BC program. And if you want to support more anonymously in the background, you can do that by becoming a patron of the show for the value of one cup of coffee each month. It's just a small Thank you. And it makes it possible for me to continue to talk to interesting people and share their secrets with you go to www dot Yeah, hyphen wall.com and find everything you need there. Thanks. So the women's empowerment.

Unknown: 45:01

We started already in Georgia. Many years ago already. 15 years ago, I was stationed in Georgia, and at one point in my former career, so I knew quite a lot of people. And already at that time, we had started coaching a good friend, and we were talking about oh my god, it would be amazing if we could give some jobs to those women, a lot of women in a very traditional society as Jordan and they have not the possibility of taking normal jobs out of the rooms. And this way we could give them the opportunity to to earn their own money because when we talk about women empowerment, we think it all starts with the opportunity to earn your own money. If you have money in your pocket, you have freedom. You have freedom and you have a bigger chance of steering your own life. Yeah. There we started the project. We have this amazing coordinator hint She is the former police director of Jordan for women. Yeah, so she's really a tough woman. Yeah. A very inspiring woman as well as she's like the coordinator of project now. And we have a lot of the same women still. And they think for us, I know the faces, we go and visit them. And it does make very good sense, because it's very simple. I'm not trying to put on any glory, saying that we are saving the world, but we are helping a few women in Jordan. And that makes a difference for them as well. Quite a lot of those women are paying the university fees for their children were with the knitting. We have some Syrian refugees part of the project as well. And then there was this woman coming pregnant to Amman. And because of the money she got from the knitting, she was able to pay for giving birth in hospital. So those things are really it's like, and the same way in Peru, we have a little community in poor areas south of south of Lima, and we were there, we always go out and visit them. There's a street with a lot of women in the street and a thing and when we come visiting them, we go up to the coordinator, she will just shout in the street now they're here. And they'll make us some food. And we have some very nice conversations. And they will show me they're building the houses like bit by bit when they have money for it. And they showed me this one wall knew how to call it the story on their other like, one like for different for another floor. Floor. They have made a new floor and this is a this wall for the new floor was made from the money last year. So just thinking okay, it makes really good sense. One year one wall. Yeah, four years hopefully. Yeah, a whole new floor of the house. From the from the new thing. So it is you can see some real change happening training,

Saskia de Feijter: 47:45

training web of women spinning webs around the world. Amazing thing. Yeah. And then you have the local women we have a

Unknown: 47:54

lot yet still we have, it's important for me to say that we didn't outsource some of the knitting because to save money. Yeah, it does cost the same for us to knit a sweater in Peru or in Georgia. Yeah, maybe it's even more expensive than doing it on the Faroe Islands. Because there's a lot of logistics, there's a lot of shipping fruit and battery. And we have coordinators as part of it, and so on. But still, most things are still lifted on the Faroe Islands. Yeah, by by hand. And that's like a different kind of off story. People will never put an out asking for knitters people come to us, because they wanted to be part of the community. And a lot of fears women, they're just knitting all the time. And why not do it for us? And they maybe are challenged also in their nesting and, and being part of, of the community. Yeah,

Saskia de Feijter: 48:41

that sounds amazing. And so what is it like to have starting as a small business and then growing into a bigger business in a place like this? How do you build how you grow? Is it easy here to start a business? Or is it comparable to anywhere else?

Unknown: 48:59

No, the difficult part is that you usually when you build up a business, you build up a strong home market. Our home market is just extremely small, extremely small. For example, we talked about we are easy to compare with Denmark, because it's like about 100 times bigger than we are. So for example, a very specific sweater. We have sold a lot of them. A lot of the men here wearing it. And yet like a superhero,

Saskia de Feijter: 49:22

there was a man dance guys. Yeah.

Unknown: 49:26

If you have sold like maybe 15,000 here on the Yeah, if we just compare it like that to Denmark, it would be 1.5 million. So that oh my gosh, that's so that's the difficulty, like saying something about the difficulty about more homework. And of course, if you were in France or somewhere else, it will be like two times again. So it would be Yeah. So it's difficult to have a small bull market. Yeah. Because like very often you you build up a strong home market and then you have a very good base also like financial base further, but we need to go further to right away. We can't live on home base. But of course, it's we are lucky to have a very loyal very set my friends quite a lot. And also with the growing tourism industry. Yeah, it's really important to us.

Saskia de Feijter: 50:13

Yes, yeah. And can you tell us a little bit about the marketing side of things and and the branding? How do you develop that because your website is amazing. It's super beautiful, and it's one of the things I do I'm a marketeer and a Brander and if I look at it, it has everything. I just wanted to talk to a person but I could find everything on your website as well. And there's movies, little clips of videos. It's beautiful, very aesthetically pleasing. Can you tell us a little bit about that like

Unknown: 50:43

from day one before like long long before I got my first salary from good friend good. Before we even started using the company money to pay for our traveling? Yeah, we spent the money we had on beautiful imagery, right? From day one. We knew that this was like our business card to the world. That was the the images. So we always worked with professional photographers, professional models. And then I tried to get different views on what we did. So it's important also to get stylists from elsewhere. Golden when she finishes collections, she's already like fed up with the collections, even though she's already moving on that. So it's really important for her to have somebody else like to carry to carry out that. Yeah. So we have been extremely cautious about how to deal with and also Yeah, this balance of it is like not just the buy button, the buy button the biathlon all the time, but instead trying to tell stories that hopefully are meaningful. Yeah. Yeah, because we also have had some crazy ideas sometimes to go here or there. But we always go back and say, Do what you're really good at. Yeah.

Saskia de Feijter: 52:01

You were talking about a film? Is it time to talk about it or visit something in the in the future? No, no, we

Unknown: 52:07

are. Yeah. Because if you if you look at our websites, we have quite a lot of fun. Yes, exactly. And we also had the opportunity we have been working with a very good film people, we use them a lot of good photographers, for our images and our campaigns as well. But we also have a special like entering to truly a video I'm filming I was married to to a photographer. And he has made a lot of the first many years of filming, the productions were made possible because usually it's extremely expensive to make films. But in the later years, we also had interest from filmmakers that have supported us and that have asked if they might do something for us. The latest thing now we have done is like a filmmaker was hired by the first national TV. And she followed us to Jordan and she met the man made the film about our project in Jordan. And just next week, we are going to launch our version of it. And we are going to prove in a couple of weeks and it's going to be some people following us there as well to make some filming.

Saskia de Feijter: 53:09

So I was wondering what the team looks like how many people work here and what their functions are.

Unknown: 53:18

We're a women only business. We are it's me and the designer Gudrun Of course, we have your own expert knitter She has been with us from day one. We have a daughter and she's in customer service. And also in the shop. We just hired Christina. She has a background in sales and marketing abroad. Also working with fashion that's really difficult to get here. So we are six people work there every day. And we have a lot of freelance knitters, they come in and out. And we also have girls in the shop helping us out. Yeah. Cool.

Saskia de Feijter: 53:52

Thank you. It's been amazing talking to you. Is there anything else you would like to share that we haven't talked about? No, I

Unknown: 53:59

just I look forward to the podcast. Yeah.

Saskia de Feijter: 54:02

Thank you so much for talking to me and taking the time out of your day. bintang usually almost. And I hope to come back to the islands. And I'm going to wear your designs with fried. So thank you very much. Thank you so much. Wow, so an island of beauty, beauty and nature, beauty and design, beauty and craftsmanship. It was amazing. I had a wonderful time I learned so much islands always have an effect on me that I don't know what to call, I get into this philosophical state that I usually don't or don't have the time for at home. I don't know what it is. They just make me think about life in a different way. And the Faroe Islands weren't any different. Thank you all that have worked on this episode, everyone that I've interviewed and of course ally for the editing. I know I don't make it easy for you. So thanks. A whole is a platform that aims to inspire people to take positive action to be part of a better world. We focus our efforts on the things we love doing so to actually can be fun. In the community makers and sellers come together, share and talk about doing their part in changing the way we look at fashion and making our own clothes. The community is open to anyone that wants to take the journey to creating and curating a more conscious closet. The BBC program helps small businesses in the industry run a healthy and holistic business that gets noticed. I'm excited to mention that the early bird tickets for the next cohort are now available. If you want to know more, go to www dot j a hyphen. In w o l.com, you have old.com and click on cellars. This podcast exists to inspire you to take action to do things a bit differently so you in turn can inspire the people around you. Share the joy of making, find solutions and share the good news. We are amazing and important. Now, go do good in the world and have some fun while doing it.