Front Lounge’s first interaction with the Orkney archipelago took place in 2009: a small team of creatives flew there after taking the train to Dyce, to work with a small group of care experienced young people. This was part of a curated programme to capture youth voices as part of the launch and roll out of the Scottish Government’s Guidance on Corporate Parenting.
Orkney snapped back into view in 2023 when Orcadian designer Kirsteen Stewart came to Dundee to take part Scotland Re: Design Festival hosted by V&A Dundee where she crossed paths with the then Isolated Heroes proprietor, Samantha Paton, and she heard firsthand about the incredible impact and potential of Kindred Clothing.
This led to a Zoom call with Camilla Plekker and Chika Inatimi some weeks later and so began a slow campaign of persistent agitation by Kirsteen to bring Kindred Clothing to Orkney. She became part of the Front Lounge conversation and became the primary Orkney connector and cheerleader, talking to people and getting different partners involved to create opportunities that weren’t there before, and motivating and inspiring people to take advantage of these opportunities.
But why? Why did Kirsteen push so hard to get involved? Firstly, Kirsteen is a designer looking for viable local production opportunities and believed that perhaps with the knowledge and skills Kindred Clothing offered she could use it to build production capacity in Orkney. Secondly, she also saw something that reflected her own values: the commitment to challenge self-doubt; the drive to enhance people’s self-belief and boost people’s confidence to do what they want to do with their lives; the primary focus on skill sharing and skill development; and the undying determination to build empowered communities, leading to a revolution in the way we live and work together.
So, what has happened to date? Well in 2024 word went out in Orkney and Nymeria Drayak elected to do the course. She turned up at Orkney Employability in Kirkwall, and they accommodated her in a room with internet. She proceeded to take part in Kindred Clothing remotely over Zoom for10 days as part of the inaugural Kindred Clothing Summer School. Nymeria did amazingly well. So much so that on Saturday 7 September 2024 Nymeria won the Tailor Trade Award as the top learner that year, and was awarded £350 as a prize.
Kirsteen Stewart did the commencement speech, and concluded with a powerfully apt poem called ‘Wonderful’ by Harry Baker:
May you always picture where you are as where you’re meant to be
May you take in your surroundings like you visited especially
We all end up in the soil eventually
So may you carry such goodness that it nourishes for centuries
May you see life as a show and may the entry fee be empathy
Sat front row with an empty seat
For friends in need
And when you’re on form be generous and spread that energy
And when you are not sure
be gentle with yourself and don’t forget to breathe
You need not be defined by your many feats- you are not a centipede
There is a joy in doing something terribly
There is a joy in sharing brews and bruises and may you do this tenderly
You are the most improved you that there has ever been
Of all the words you’ll ever hear, remember these
Life is too short to eat celery
Life is too long to feed jealousy
And life is likely just the right length to need therapy
May you be seriously silly
May you be wickedly kind
May you be brilliantly dumb sometimes and yet stupidly bright
May your certainty have doubts
May your weirdness be the norm
May the coolest thing about you be your warmth
May you be powerfully vulnerable
Or at least mightily soft
May you be a contradiction and yet, at the same time, not
And whether you are any, none or all of the above
Above all
May you know that you are loved
May you understand that it’s okay to change your mind
Particularly if your views are not the same as mine
May you always make room for playfulness
It may just save your life
And trust whatever makes your heart grow cannot be a waste of time
It may not make you money
It may not even make sense
But if it makes you happy it is worth it in the end
and it is worth it at the time
and it deserves your very best
And you are never too busy to catch your breath
Just as you cannot be in traffic without being traffic
Life is not something that you are stuck in while it happens
There is more in you than you can possibly imagine
The very fact that you exist makes everything a bit more magic
When it all feels too much and there is little you can do
May you still see the best in people and may people include you
May one thing match the gravity of all you’ve ever done
This wonderful reality – the best is yet to come.
On 1 February 2025, Kirsteen joined 16 others to take part in the Front Lounge Vision Day. Her presence alone, as well as her unique perspective, helped challenge the Front Lounge community to think beyond Dundee, to dream bigger.
So bigger we dreamed.
In May-June 2025 we conducted the very first in person Kindred Clothing course in Orkney. It was funded by DYW Orkney, delivered remotely by Fashion Technologist Christie Wanless, and supported in person by Kirsteen Stewart. The course was devised as a ‘training the trainers’ experience with the specific intention of installing people with sufficient knowledge and skill to deliver future Kindred Clothing courses in person on the Orkney archipelago. Alongside the ‘training the trainers’ course, we also ran a four-week EVOLUTION project featuring 3 young people. All this learning activity climaxed in a wonderful runway event attended by a small appreciative audience and hosted by The Old Library in Kirkwall. Furthermore, there was a small graduation event hosted by Orkney College on Monday 8 September 2025 that honoured the achievements of Briony Avery, Francis Marshall, and Kayleigh Archibald, the first 3 learners to formally graduate on Orkney!
The three trainers, all proficient sewists before they took part in Kindred Clothing, have translated their experience into action in different ways: Briony has incorporated it into her work and as part of The Learning Link is planning to deliver a Kindred Clothing course in early 2026; Francis has taken it into her business and is producing and selling more; and Kayleigh is helping to take Kindred Clothing into Westray Junior High School, with a new cohort to begin soon in late 2025. We are also slowly but surely building a Clothes Making Learning Partnership (CMLP) Orkney branch to be established initially with at least 5 Orkney based businesses. CMLP Orkney will help facilitate internship and job opportunities as the skill pool becomes deeper.
Kirsteen has spoken Kindred Clothing into being in Orkney, and it has been amazing to watch this incredible journey unfurl.