Textiles Take the Stage at Hay on Wye Festival

Among the fields of cow parsley and second-hand books, in a town where every corner turns a page, Hay Festival 2025 is threading textiles through its tapestry of talks, debates and ideas. Known as 'the Woodstock of the mind,' this internationally acclaimed gathering of thinkers and storytellers now sets its sights on fabric - not as fashion’s footnote, but as a central narrative.

The Hay on Wye Festival at night. Photo Credit: credit Sam Hardwick and Hay Festival.

This year’s programme invites us to listen to the rustle of cloth and the stories it holds, with Kate Fletcher and Zandra Rhodes bringing textiles to the fore. Their conversations weave together environmental thinking, radical design and lived experience in ways that challenge and enchant.

Kate Fletcher. Photo Credit: Jack Grange.

Fletcher, a leader in sustainable fashion and systems change, appears with Fletcher’s Almanac (Sunday 25 May, 5.30pm, Creative Hub), a conversation that promises not just insight, but recalibration. 

In support of her newest publication, Fletcher’s Almanac: Nature Encounters & Fashion Systems Through the Year, Vol. 1, she offers a vision in which clothing no longer orbits the machinery of capitalism but instead roots itself in the land, the seasons, and our shared ecological future. Drawing from her groundbreaking “Earth Logic” framework, Fletcher speaks not of trends, but of textiles as testimony — to place, care and repair. Still undecided? You can discover more about her latest work in Selvedge Issue 124, Rural.

Zandra Rhodes.

Then, on the Festival’s final afternoon, expect a riot of colour and character as Zandra Rhodes takes the stage alongside journalist Lynn Barber, in conversation with Rebecca Jones (Lives in Art and Fashion, Sunday 1 June, 4pm, Meadow Stage).

Lynn Barber.

Rhodes, who built an extraordinary career from a bolt of printed silk and an unwavering eye for drama, shares her life story through 50 objects - each one a vivid stitch in the fabric of British fashion history. Her hand-drawn prints, worn by everyone from Freddie Mercury to Princess Diana, speak volumes about invention, independence and the sheer joy of pattern. 

Barber, ever incisive and curious, draws out the tension and tenderness in these creative lives, mapping the intersections between words and textiles, art and identity.

At Hay, textiles are taking the literary stage. Whether screen-printed or soil-stained, hand-stitched or hard-won, cloth is conversation. And this May, in a field full of books and possibility, we’re listening.

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Further Information:

Hay Festival is on from 22 May to 1 June 2025 in Hay on Wye, Wales, UK

Tickets and passes for the festival can be booked via their website.

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Image Credits:

Lead Image: Zandra Rhodes with a backdrop of her printed creations. Source: Textile Eye.