Support and inspiration from Poetry

We are delighted to announce our partnership with the incredible ethical fashion brand Poetry who are supporting our mission to make creativity and play a part of every child’s life. This partnership between The Herd and Poetry is also one of shared values around the preciousness and importance of materials. 

The financial support from Poetry to The Herd will enable us to deliver around 50 days of play activity or theatre to families in the UK in a year. This partnership will extend our reach, bringing more opportunities for joy, connection, and imagination to families who need it most. This is huge for us at The Herd and

Poetry have always been committed to making clothes with minimal impact on the planet. They use only natural fabrics, which means supporting the use of renewable resources and the growth of millions of plants. They don’t dispose of anything to landfill, and recycle whenever possible. If items have small faults, such as a loose button, repairs are made by in-house seamsters. In 2024 Poetry repaired 2,493 pieces of clothing. In addition to in-house efforts to repair every piece of clothing to be as-new, they also use unsold and waste stock to do some good.

Poetry donated props and fabrics from ex-display items in their London stores to our 2025 project REPLAY for Bradford City of Culture. These materials were repurposed for play in our installation made entirely out of waste and recycled materials. The project keeps going and is currently on in London until 12th April 2026. So far we've have over 14,000 children and their families through the doors, getting joy out of these materials. After the installation, the materials will then feed into our wider play programme of weekly activities in Hull. When things are worn or broken beyond repair for play, they will be recycled.

Poetry have been working in this way since they started over 20 years ago. We're hugely inspired by this. REPLAY has changed everything for The Herd. When making art for children, it's impossible not to think about the future and about the moment when these children become adults. A moment that looks increasingly under threat because of the climate emergency. We don't want to scare, or burden children with a problem they played no part in causing, but we know that so much of children’s play provision - toys, soft play, technology - has no consideration for a world with finite resources. We don't want to be part of that and we want environmental responsibility to be at the heart of what we’re doing.  We now ensure at least 80% of materials we use across all our projects and shows are recycled or from waste.