Síofra Caherty’s workshop is in a building in a tree-lined north Belfast that is home to a collection of artists and creatives.
Among those who work there are a sculptor, weaver, jeweller, illustrator and architects.
Sustainability is at the heart of Síofra’s work and her company, Jump The Hedges, turns truck tarpaulins into bags - the most hard wearing, indestructible bags you can imagine - in bold colours.
Working with 40-foot tarpaulins is time and labour intensive. Once sourced, a tarpaulin is loaded into the back of Síofra’s car and she crosses her fingers that the exhaust doesn’t fall out of her car, again.
The tarp is cleaned in rainwater in an industrial washer, then stripped off straps and buckles before Síofra spreads it out, lifts a sharp blade and begins slicing the unwieldy material into more manageable sizes to fit on to the huge table in her workshop.
After that she cuts patterns for her range of bags and begins to stitch each one by hand using an industrial Japanese sewing machine from the 1970s.
Learning how to machine stitch tarpaulin was a challenge and Síofra’s first effort with the Juki sewing machine was disheartening.
“When I got it I couldn’t stitch a straight line. I thought I was going to take my hand off. I was thinking this is the worst day ever.”
Persistence and practice paid off and now she machines a seam like she’s working with cotton for a summer dress.
The Co Armagh businesswoman has designed plenty of clothes for plenty of different wardrobes through the years.
“I claim to be the first fashion designer from Cullyhanna. I wanted to be a fashion designer from the age of three or four. I was making dresses from sweet wrappers.”
Fast forward to age 18 and she was off to study fashion design at art college and spent a memorable summer in New York, interning with “three mad designers from Kazakhstan, Russian and Israel” whose clients included Yoko Ono, Roisin Murphy and Bjork.
“I was completely green going in. The office was in Chinatown, it was silver from floor to ceiling with disco balls everywhere and dogs running around,” she said.
“My eyes were rolling out of my head on a daily basis.“
Immediately after graduation Síofra accepted a job as a designer for an outdoor clothing company in Co Mayo.
“From contemporary, cool designs in New York to designing fleeces in Mayo in the rain. I felt like I was in a Marian Keyes novel. It was an unbelievable experience, such a baptism of fire. I loved the craic. I’d be getting phone calls from farmers who had caught their trousers on barbed wire.”
On top of that there were a couple of prestigious nominations. Being named runner up in the Persil young designer of the year competition was a particularly big deal as she was featured on the Late, Late Show and the great and good of Cullyhanna gathered in the GAA clubhouse to watch it on a big screen.
At 25 Síofra bagged her dream job, designing for sports giant Adidas at their German headquarters. The reality wasn’t what she had hoped and the proud gaeilgeoir and banjo player missed much about home and also felt stifled creatively.
“I missed the craic… I really missed Irishness, I missed the banter,” she says. And so after a year she left.
It was during a masters in multi-disciplinary design at Ulster University that the idea for making bags from repurposed materials really took shape, with the concept for a bag which would comfortably hold a yoga mat and some kit at the forefront of her mind.
And so the yoga sleeve and Jump The Hedges was born.
When she works Síofra wears one of her dad’s heavy duty orange boiler suits with his name, Ollie Caherty, stitched on the chest. Over it she layers a bespoke maroon suede waistcoat gifted to her by the Hungarian brothers who run Mamukko in Co Cork where she interned after winning a Future Maker of Ireland Award from the Design and Craft Council of Ireland.
Síofra credits her parents’ limitless support with allowing her to dream big.
Her company name comes from the opening lines of the Van Morrison song Sweet Thing and Síofra firmly believes “your gear shouldn’t restrict you, you should be able to jump the hedges”.
She has a loyal group of female entrepreneurial friends who can be relied upon to offer support and advice.
Her advice for other creatives starting out?
“Start small, try to double job so you don’t have 100% financial pressure. The passion leaves when there’s urgency and pressure; it removes the fun and the pleasure. Money is very hard to make. This is the hardest I’ve ever worked and the least I’ve ever earned.
“I want to throw the towel in once a month. That feeling is getting less and less, now it’s once a day.”
And that's Jump The Hedge's USP - bags and banter.
