Putting the ‘girly look’ back into fashion gear for the outdoor woman

PUTTING the ‘girly look’ back into female outdoor and work clothing was the motivation for a Galway woman to launch a new range of ‘practical fashionwear’ for those who love the great outdoors.

Grace Roche from Abbey, Loughrea, launched her Pretty Bird range at last month’s Ploughing Championships in Screggan and was delighted with the response.

For years, Grace along with her husband Raymond, had been regular visitors to The Ploughing but she could never find any female outdoor gear that would fulfil two basic criteria – practicality and style.

Originally from Powerscross, Woodford – just down the road from where her husband farms – Grace decided that there just had to be more women like herself who were ‘out there’ looking for outdoor gear.

“You might get the odd garment – like an expensive wax jacket – but as for items like overalls, dungarees, footwear or T-shirts, they weren’t available.

“I thought to myself that there had to be many more women out there in the same boat as myself and unable to get this type of gear without a major search,” Grace Roche told the Farming Tribune.

Grace, who works as a marketing consultant with Leitrim business development company, Momentum, also helps out on the dairy farm with husband Raymond (an IT manager) and his father Pat Roche.

She’s well versed in farming ways – growing up as an only daughter on the family farm  [Lyons of Power’s Cross in Woodford] with her three brothers – so the move into ‘farm fashion’ was quite a natural one to make.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Triubne.