NEWS : we’re on the move ❤️Yes - We are changing from our Temple Bar store which will close on October 4th 2020, and for now we are focusing on our huge Dundrum pop-up superstore which opens October 8th 2020 right through to April 2021. 
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We’ve know in our hearts for a while that we need a larger space to showcase all that we wanted to achieve for Folkster - and then add to that our new priority of making our team and customers feel comfortable and safe.
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Our lease expired and before renewal, we had to take a long, hard look at how we can continue to grow in a small space - especially one that doesn’t have best layout to deal with social distancing and reduced customer capacities. Dundrum provides us with that space and we are excited to continue on our adventure! 

Thank you so, SO much to everyone who took the time and effort to visit us in Temple Bar - and our amazing team for making it so special for us. We are beyond grateful, we hope you’ll all continue with us on our adventure 😊❤️ (P.S KIlkenny remains unchanged - we’re just moving from Temple Bar)

Our pop-up Folkster Dundrum store is OPEN! 

We are SO excited to announce that we are returning to our pop-up Dundrum Town Centre superstore - opening on the 8th of October! 
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- The Folkster Dundrum superstore features three floors of fashion, home, toys and gifting 😊 We’re aiming to create a one stop Folkster destination for all of your gift, party & Christmas shopping outings 🤩

Here is what you’ll find in Folkster Dundrum > 
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- the magical GROUND floor will be a walk-in store open 7 days a week, filled with party wear, casual & cosy, street-style vintage, gifting, self-care, record players, vinyls, art, dried flowers, books AND our new gift box experience area, featuring a mix of our hand picked stock and some of our favourite small Irish producers ❤️ ☘️
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- the light & spacious TOP floor will be a HUGE private bridesmaids appointment space, with social distanced private fitting areas and our latest collection, assisted by your own Folkster senior stylist🥰 (book now on folkster.com!)
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The Basement is a walk-in Winter Wonderland, filled to the brim with Christmas decorations, toys & books for babies and children, gift ideas for all ages, our Little Folkster Den and of course our hand-picked Home accessories! 🥳
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We are SO excited to have this opportunity to create a magical calm shopping experience - somewhere you can immerse yourself amongst some beautiful things, away from the rest of the world.

Folkster Dundrum : 

Monday-Wednesday :  10-7pm
Thursday- Friday 10am - 9pm
Saturday : 10am - 7pm
Sunday :  11am - 7pm

Folkster Kilkenny 

Monday-Saturday : 10am - 6pm

Sunday : 12pm - 6pm 

Folkster Vintage 

Saturday : 10am-6pm

Sunday : 12pm-6pm

Folkster Dundrum is a huge store open right through to April 2021 - and you will find us at the Dundrum Town Centre. Our closest car park is the green car park -2. The store is outside by the fountain, beside Harvey Nichols. 

Yes! We are excited to see you all again. We have some changes though :  Folkster Kilkenny and Folkster Dundrum are now open. However Folkster Temple Bar will close on October 4th. 

For BRIDESMAID shoppers, We have  introduced an appointment system which means all bridesmaid  styles will be shopped by pre-booked appointment only for the foreseeable future (you can book directly here) :) 

For all other customers - our stores remain WALK-IN 7 days a week :D 

In Dundrum this means that the top floor which has our event wear collection, will be available by appointment only, while the ground floor and basement will be walk in with our contemporary clothing, home, gift, toys, Christmas etc. 

In Kilkenny this means that the back event wear room and fitting rooms are by appointment only, while the front of the store and front fitting rooms are WALK-IN for other clothing, accessories, home etc :) The Vintage  store is also open every weekend for walk-ins too. 

This means more choice in the main stores for non-formal-buying customers, and more privacy and one-on-one styling for our appointment customers - yay! It also, and most importantly means we can control the social distancing and sanitation guidelines for the safety of our team and community :) 
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IF SHOPPING WITH US IN STORE, PLEASE TAKE A MOMENT TO READ ABOUT OUR CHANGES TO ENSURE SAFE SHOPPING :)  

Appointments : The maximum amount permitted in each appointment space is 6 people per appointment. (this does not apply to bridal appointments - which are for the bride and one guest only due to space restraints) 

PPE/FACE MASKS : 
For the protection of our team and community, we kindly ask you to please wear face masks when shopping with us. We will have hand sanitiser stations at the entrance of the store and we require all team and customers to use it upon entry.

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Only if you are part of a bridesmaids group - all other customers can visit our WALK-IN stores at Kilkenny & Dundrum, which are open 7 days a week.. 

All bridesmaids visits and areas in store are now by appointment only. See more info below in the Bridal & Bridesmaids section. 

Yes due to COVID -19 we have changed our policy, meaning that bridesmaids can be tried on by pre-booked appointments only :) You can book your appointment and check the availability on the appointment calendar right >here<  Appointments are available in both our Temple Bar and Kilkenny stores. :) 

Yes, sadly due to no-shows we now require a 30 euro booking deposit to confirm your Bridal or Bridesmaid appointment. This deposit is refundable at the end of your booked appointment via the original method of payment. You may also be entitled to a refund of this deposit if you provide a MINIMUM of 72 hours notice to cancel your booked appointment. For info on how to cancel: see the next question :) 

Don't worry! We will always do our best to accommodate you - please do email us to hello@folkster.com to see if we can fit you in quicker if you have an urgent situation :) 

To cancel your BRIDESMAID appointment - 

To ensure proper tracking of cancellations, we ask that the cancellation is by writing. Please email HELLO@FOLKSTER.COM with your appointment date and time and the name on the booking to ensure cancellation.

Please note: We can only accept cancellations at minimum 72 hours prior to the start of your booked appointments, any cancellations after that time will nullify your deposit which will then not be refundable. The booking deposit can not be transferred to another appointment or stock or gift voucher or store credit. 

If you are making an in-store appointment or buying online but sizes are low, we recommend allowing 6-8 weeks for restock of your item :) If they are on our restock list, you will be able to pre-order some items in the appointment to ensure you get the sizes you need. Your in-appointment stylist will assist you further on the ordering of it all :) 

 
Bridal is reopened for appointments now which you can book right here! The team are so excited to see you all. As Folkster Bridal is a smaller space, there is currently a maximum capacity of the bride plus one guest per appointment per COVID-19 guidelines. Face masks are kindly requested to be worn, and we have a hand sanitisation station upon entry. We are also cleaning each space after each appointment. :)

You will find the Folkster Bridal F.A.Q right >here< :) 

Yes - we would love for you to continue shopping online with us online or in store.  Thank you for your support :)

To ensure our consistent high standards of hygiene and social distancing are maintained, and to safeguard our temporarily reduced team while working: we are allocating one person to work in each department for now.  That means one person in the online office, one incoming in the warehouse and one in sorting in the warehouse.  

DPD is our national delivery partner and they have issued the following statement: 

"DPD has ceased passing the driver's scanner to the consignee to capture a proof of delivery signature. Instead, where the consignee is present to receive delivery, the driver will retain possession of the scanner, will request the name of the signatory which he/she will key into the name field and will capture the words C19 in the signature field. Driver will not capture the signature of the recipient. Where "Safe Place" or "Letterbox" options are in place for the delivery, these instructions will be followed. GPS coordinates are captured at the point where the parcel is scanned as delivered."

DHL is our international delivery partner and they have issued the following statement:

“We are still operating our signature service as normal however our couriers have been instructed that it is the choice of the receiver whether they wish to physically sign for their parcel when delivery is taking place. If they don’t wish to sign on the courier scanner as normal the courier will confirm this with the person on site at the time of delivery and will enter their name against the delivery for our records. The couriers are sanitizing all scanners between delivery/collection drops.”

Yes we do ship worldwide! We ship to most countries via DHL! More information on that here 

Once dispatched from our orders department, it usually takes about 1-3 business days to arrive within Ireland via DPD :) For international time frames - please allow 2-5 working days (Mon-Fri) depending on location :)

Please note: There may be some slight delays as courier companies come under extra pressure during this time, but we will monitor the situation and update our customers through our social media channels. 

We send a tracking order to the email you used to place your order. Please be sure to check your spam or junk folder for that email. Still no sign? We're sorry if you haven't received a tracking number for your order just yet - it could be that your sale has not processed. Please pop our orders team a mail to orders@folkster.com, and we can send on all the relevant information 

Ireland is part of the EU and as such all orders placed for shipping to the Republic of Ireland and other EU countries will not incur customs and duties. 

Orders to Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom do not currently incur customs charges but that may change with the effects of Brexit. 

Countries outside of the EU may be subject to import duties and taxes, which are applied once a shipment reaches your country.

Folkster cannot control and is not responsible for any duties or taxes applied to your package. You will be responsible for paying additional charges for customs clearance. Customs policies and charges vary widely from country to country. You should contact your local customs office for further information :) More details on that here :)

Absolutely! We have a reduced team in place to help - here's how you can contact us: 

We can currently take phone calls between 12-6pm Mon- Fri on +353 56 770 3312 

You can chat with us live on folkster.com between 12-6pm Mon-Fri. 

You can email us to hello@folkster.com - OR if your query is in relation to Folkster BRIDAL, please email bridal@folkster.com.

If you are returning by Irish AN POST : please return to : 

FOLKSTER RETURNS 
ORDER NUMBER: __________ 
P.O. BOX 39,
THURLES,
CO. TIPPERARY,
REPUBLIC OF IRELAND 

If you are returning by COURIER : e.g DPD, FASTWAY, DHL etc please return to : 

FOLKSTER RETURNS 

27 PATRICK STREET, 

KILKENNY 

REPUBLIC OF IRELAND

IN STORE RETURNS OF ONLINE ORDERS

Please note - any in store returns of online orders need to be pre-arranged by email to hello@folkster.com or orders@folkster.com.  you can arrange to return in store on one of our allocated return days. Please reach out to us at hello@folkster.com to arrange an in-store return or for further assistance (Standard "Condition of Goods" returns policy applies)

As a small business - we recognise that we have a very tiny voice in this industry and so we know the changes we can control are not as much as we would like.
However - here is what we have been able to achieve on our long road to a more sustainable and ethical business : 

We have reduced the number of core fashion suppliers we work with - this means that we have grown relationships with them and a level of trust. We ask that all of our suppliers confirm that they have good working conditions. All of our suppliers have confirmed that, and any we had any doubts about - we moved on from. However, we want to be transparent that it is really impossible to be 100% sure of this - we know our core suppliers regularly have to pass audits and that gives us a lot of comfort, but unless you are literally working there beside them every day, we can never know for sure how they are treated when others are not around. All we can do is go with our instincts from dealing with them over a growing period of time - to trust that they are telling us the truth, and also believe that the audits are being carried out in a straight forward and above board manner. That's why it's so vital to KNOW our suppliers directly and who they are rather than buying from a third party.

Another step we have taken is moving from fast to slow fashion. We started as a vintage store, then got caught up in selling cool brands and moving a little into fast fashion, We found out pretty quickly that while this was an easier way to make money, it just didn't sit well with us. We couldn't accept the waste, the quality, the lack of transparency. We started the long journey to become a 100% own design slow fashion brand, and that's the road you find us on now :) 

A smaller section of our casual and debs offerings are still through agencies in L.A  as we are too small of a business to produce that volume of styles by ourselves. We are slowly taking more control of that so that we only work with the smaller selection of suppliers - we've actually gone from 100% other labels to around 70% Folkster/30% other labels in the last 5 years. It's been very difficult at times but we fundamentally believe that controlling all of our own production relationships is the best way to have a greater understanding of the working conditions involved. 
It won’t be possible for us to produce all of our own home and books collections though,  so we ONLY work with long standing, respected suppliers.

We also buy in small amounts to avoid overstock/waste and combine shipping as much as possible. We are also starting to develop relationships with Irish small gift suppliers too - from their home workshop to our shop. 

We’ve also got a huge vintage collection in our Dundrum store and a dedicated vintage store in Kilkenny. It’s what we started as and it’s great that we can still have it as part of our business 

We know we have a lot more we want to achieve, but we hope you can see from this mail that our intentions are to become a 100% own production fashion brand that can do our OWN continuous factory visits and bring that confidence to our customers too, married with respected third party stock too. It's been an eye-opening and educational transition from fast to slow fashion - but we are so pleased to be on this better road. 

Also here is an overview of a few of our main fashion suppliers : 

-Our main supplier is a family business in Barcelona. They make almost all of our bridesmaids and occasion wear and they are AMAZING to work with...we've visited with them and were so impressed by how they treated their team, and the working conditions. Our aim is to move all non-beaded stock production to them, which we have been doing over the last couple of years.

-One of our suppliers is a factory in India owned by an amazing American woman who offers her team good working conditions and 401Ks. We know she is passionate about fair employment from dealing with her directly - so that gives us confidence. Also when we have asked to visit the factory, (all of our visits are postponed due to Covid) she had no problem at all and encouraged us to do so. Sometimes in the past when we've asked people, if they are in any way cagey about our potential visit  -  that's when we feel it best to move on from them. 

- Another production company in India we work with is one we found through a trade fair. They also have assured us they are all above board, audited and again been very encouraging to us to come and visit which is very reassuring.

We thank you for questioning our approact to sustainabilty - it's questions like that which drive this industry to try and do better. It's our mission to always keep trying to do better every day :)

As a asmall business, we accept for now that it won’t be possible for us to produce all of our own home and books collections though, so we ONLY work with long standing, respected suppliers.

We also buy in small amounts to avoid overstock/waste and combine shipping as much as possible. We are also starting to develop relationships with Irish small gift suppliers too - from their home workshop to our shop.

We've started our own candle range which is currently made in the most respected candle house in the UK - but we aim to move that production to Ireland asap :)