In this pocket of northwest Ireland, colour, community and countryside are channelled into the British brand’s Autumn/Winter garments.
On the mill floor of Donegal Yarns, an open bay frames the landscape outside. The entrance’s raison d’être, one would imagine, is operations-related rather than aesthetic. But in the latter sense it delivers. A postcard picture of Kilcar life sits beyond the bay’s rectangular perimeter. A couple of cottages are plotted on the sloping fields, laundry billows from a clothesline in the face of Atlantic wind, and a dog darts around a roomy front garden.
It’s a vignette of an ordinary Wednesday in this Donegal village (population: approximately 400). A soothing sight for eyes like mine, which have been confronted by an arid, heatwave-stricken London in the months surrounding my July visit.
I’m not simply here for a metropolis detox, although it would be an optimal destination if I were – Sarah Jessica Parker does, indeed, have a holiday home in the vicinity. Rather, I’ve travelled with TOAST, the British lifestyle and clothing brand, known for functional, timeless garments, its thoughtful but frill-less approach to craftsmanship, and circular, nature-inspired ethos.
The brand’s knitwear, as you might expect, is the focus of our afternoon at Donegal Yarns. As a central facet of its product offering – not least its Autumn/Winter 2026 collection, named “Marking the Turn” – the company has worked in partnership with the iconic mill for over a decade. While it’s an enduring attachment, Donegal Yarns’ work with TOAST reflects only a fragment of its history as part of the local wool-making tradition. As Donegal Yarns General Manager Chris Weniger highlights in a presentation on arrival at the site – over an early lunch, which includes chutneys, cheese, tea and soda breads, baked by an employee’s sister – the tweed industry in this corner of northwest Ireland has origins in the 18th century. “Being in a rural location, families worked together using the natural resources available in the surrounding area,” he later tells Man About Town. “Being innovative and developing new skills was essential, and this ultimately supported the industrialisation of the region’s textile industry.”
That industry has, across generations, offered much to the economy of villages like Kilcar and the county as a whole. However, it’s also left its mark on textile design in a material sense – a colourful, fleck-proportioned legacy to be specific. Central to the wool’s visual identity to this day is its heathered appearance driven by vibrant specks of colour that mottle earthy-hued garments. Colourful neps – small clusters or knots of fibres – are spun into the main wool base, adding character, texture and depth. A happy accident, the signature Donegal fleck is thought to have originated with cottage spinners unwittingly incorporating wandering coloured fibres into blends, before they were taken by the idiosyncrasy it created and its affinity with the palette of the surrounding seaboard countryside.
Alongside a couple of journalists, the TOAST design team have also made the trip west from the brand’s London offices, as they work on its Autumn/Winter 2027 collection. For them, making the journey from time to time isn’t just a chance to bolster manufacturer relations, but an opportunity to be immersed in the processes, expertise and natural environment that have sustained Donegal Yarns’ standing. “At TOAST, textiles are fundamental to the design of our garments,” Catie Palmer, Menswear Designer, explains. “We’re inspired by the human connection to textile processes – being able to visit a mill, drive through fields where sheep are reared, and have conversations with people at the factory. It allows us to better understand the material and its history.”
Time in Kilcar – cleansing the lungs with Donegal air and sipping a Guinness alongside mill workers at family-run local pub John Joe’s (as we do that evening) – centres nature and community in the design process. The “Marking the Turn” collection itself is a reflection on the intersection of the two. As the brand explains, it’s a consideration of “the rituals and rites that signal our movement through the seasons.” As the earth orbits the sun this winter, the collection will release in stages, correlating with its journey. The first October drop takes inspiration from the concept of “dusking”, a twilight ritual that involves observing the transition from day to night. As nights in the northern hemisphere draw in, the rails of TOAST stores are beginning to fill with richer garments – knit layering sits alongside nourishing accessories and form-focussed canvas jackets.
Palette-wise – hazier, muted tones dominate, not least the flint grey of the collared cardigan, or the straw and red cedar hues of the Donegal Wool roll neck sweater. “Colour is a core part of how we build each TOAST collection,” Palmer continues. “Every season, we create specific colour palettes which align with our broader concept.” That focus gives Donegal Yarns another layer of appeal for the brand, thanks to the opportunity their collaboration offers to make use of the colour wheel of its existing range of yarns, but crucially, also to work alongside the mill’s own colour specialist to create bespoke wool blends, and consequentially, garments in shades that are wholly unique to TOAST. “First, we select a base colour,” Palmer explains. “This may be inspired by a vintage garment or a natural landscape. We work with the colour designer at Donegal Yarns to blend three or four colours to create the base colour. These are carded together, and from here we build the nepp colours. The nepp allows [us] to add something unexpected to the mix, such as a pop of cobalt blue on a rich brown base.”
Heading up that process on the Donegal Yarns side is colour designer Nora. I meet her shortly after our arrival, at lunch, and obliviously ask her what she does at the mill. She tells me she does the colour. An understatement – thanks to her decades of work here, much of the colour know-how that contributes to Donegal Yarns’ present-day cachet would appear to live within her head. Nora resides locally, is matter-of-fact but warm, and supportively imparts her encyclopedic knowledge in a colour workshop later that afternoon.
“The design team at TOAST has always understood the importance of our colour work,” Weniger says. For Jane Hardy, TOAST Technical Product Developer Manager, this component of their collaboration epitomises the two parties’ working synergy. “It’s a key example of how well we collaborate,” she says. “It has required an investment in time and an understanding of our brand from Donegal Yarns.” The development of new yarn blends is another way their expertise has overlapped, including the creation of lighter-weight varieties. TOAST does, after all, now cater to customers in West Hollywood and San Francisco (just two of its 10 US stores), with different outfitting needs than its original British customer base. “Our approach is to harness the strengths and expertise that Donegal Yarns offer,” Hardy continues. “Their product is uniquely characterful and reminiscent of local yarns that would have been hand-spun in the past, boasting a natural texture and beautiful irregularity. Over time, this quality has become associated with our core knitwear styles at TOAST.”
The embrace of the mill’s technical insight is pleasing to the staff here, too. “The importance TOAST places on traditional skills brings a sense of satisfaction to our team,” Weniger says. It goes beyond daily morale, however. As one of the last remaining major producers of authentic Donegal Tweed in Ireland, the mill’s continued success is a lifeline for the local economy.
That evening, after a detour to one of the local farms, helmed by one of the mill’s employees, we land at John Joe’s. With mint-hued exterior walls, convivial interiors, an array of local whiskeys, and ample reserves of the black stuff, it occupies a dual function as the epicentre of the community’s downtime and the ultimate local pub experience for the many tourists who pass through the village each year. Pictures of Parker and Liam Neeson during their own visits hang on the wall, as do film posters from two of the big screen titles that used the village as a shooting location in recent times. Titular landlord John Joe, an elderly gentleman who mans the bar during our visit, tells me that he liked one of the films, but not so much the other.
That weekend, Donegal Yarns will host its summer staff barbecue here. A trad band session will be held later that evening, but during our time there, the pub is primarily filled out purely by Donegal Yarns and TOAST staff – for much of our visit, only one local man flicking through a newspaper over a pint occupies another table. It’s just one snapshot of any given week in the watering hole, but an example nonetheless of the way the mill’s fortunes ripple through the community. “In Kilcar, between the spinning, weaving and knitting, industry is very much alive,” Weniger says. “It helps encourage many of the younger generation to stay. The famous Donegal tweed attracts visitors from all around the world to explore the culture and heritage, which also helps the local economy. We are fortunate to have companies like TOAST to partner with and support our plans to preserve this tradition for future generations.”
