it's always hard to tell with these things how much it's something that is just reflecting personal change, who you're hanging out with, etc, versus how much this is a genuine shift in the culture. but it feels like we're in the middle of a big shift in terms of people engaging with traditional crafts?
like, my big thing right now is pottery, and the people who i am on (daytime weekday!) courses with are primarily my age, in their 20s and 30s, with just a smattering of retired folks. and the studios we're doing these courses in have largely been set up in the last few years. i have friends who are, unconnected from my decision to do this, also getting into pottery. there's a bunch of craft fairs where small scale makers are selling their stuff.
i just read that Morris dancing, which i grew up with my grandparents doing, and which i have always associated with, frankly, the over-60s & real ale, has a new wave of younger people getting involved. and changing the culture of it, too - more mixed-gender sides, and much more openness in terms of what genders can perform what dances, and in what roles. and honestly, great. everyone should get to hit the sticks together.
and of course, this isn't even getting into the fiber arts. even beyond, like, knitting & crochet, - one of my friendship groups is full of chats about weaving, constant moaning about having to finish winding the warp or not getting the hang of doubleweave. there's a friend that keeps sheep, there's a friend that cards & spins wool, there's friends that weave, there's obviously a lot of friends who sew... maybe they should all get together and enter the International Back to Back Wool Challenge
which isn't to be over-optimistic about the future of crafts as a whole. the Red List shows a lot of endangered crafts, and many will not be benefitting from this trend - they require years of skill, or can only be done at a large scale, or are too embedded in a way of life that is not likely to return. but even so, the instinctive response i have seen to the Red List itself is more likely to be "oh no, what can be done" than "who cares if no-one is making handcrafted baskets for transporting bees any more".
i guess you could try to connect this to, like, the current reactionary turn in politics, tradwives and all of that. but i am, obviously, not friends with those people, and those kinds of politics are not something i have seen in any of these spaces. as you can see with the Morris dancing, it's not like people are just unquestioningly accepting the politics of these spaces (the proportion of Tory voters among Morris dancers is i think definitely trending in the right direction). i think instead there is a wider kind of trend that has curdled in some of these fashy-er political spaces into this kind of "retvrn"-style politics. a trend pointing towards sustainability & justice & a lot of anxiety about doing things the right way. and an increased appreciation for things that look good in a timelapse video, that feels like a big part too.
