Limerick is fast becoming a design hot-spot with the city's latest fashion graduates bagging a number of awards. Now they unleash their arty take on wearable fashion, writes DEIRDRE MCQUILLAN.
THE YEAR 2008 has turned out to be a stellar one for graduate fashion students of Limerick School of Art & Design, who keep hoovering up major fashion awards. They have carried off first prizes in recent fashion competitions such as the Nokia (won by Michelle Wilson of Co Cork), the DIT (won by Maggie Danaher from Co Limerick) and most recently the €10,000 Persil fashion award was won by Ann Conmy from Sligo. It is the proud boast of Trish Keilthy, joint course director with Anne Melinn at LSAD, that with the exception of two years, Limerick fashion students have picked up awards every year since 1983. They just try harder. Set up in 1974 to support what was then a thriving and long established clothing industry in Limerick, the department's ethos has always been to encourage creativity in tandem with technical proficiency and knowledge.
Knitwear has always been the college's strong point, encouraged by local designers and the flourishing of small independent knitwear labels. Next year will see the fashion department move from the 1930s building that has been its home since its foundation to a new development in the Clare Street campus.
The 19 students who will graduate this year take their inspiration from very diverse sources. Isabelle Phipps, for instance, based her collection on James Joyce's doomed daughter Lucia, Lorna Doogue was inspired by the cartoonist Gerald Scarfe, and Patrick Byrne took his inspiration from the abstract pen drawings he does when he's bored. Other cited Swan Lake, coral reefs, The Rakes, opium poppies, Gaudi and Art Deco as influences. Although notable for very different approaches, what unites the students this year, according to Keilthy, is an emphasis on experimental cutting and the breaking of rules, with many influenced by the work of the avant garde modernist Rei Kawakubo, founder of Comme des Garcons.
Around 900 students apply for LSAD's foundation course every year, with 25 being chosen to study fashion. Some have fine art leanings, but have chosen to express their interest through fabric and fashion, says Ms Keilthy. This year's graduates have had work experience with Irish and international designers from Lainey Keogh and Joanne Hynes in Ireland to Todd Lynn, Bora Aksu, Preen and Boudicca in London. Some want to go to New York, or do Masters degrees, while others have decided to work with private clients or go into other spheres of the fashion industry such as marketing.
Michelle Wilson's multi-layered dress decorated with 500 Swarovski copper-coloured crystals carried off first prize in the Nokia competition earlier this year. Not yet out of college, Wilson has already picked up a commission to make a dress for Miss Cork, Jean Kenny, in the forthcoming Miss Ireland competition on June 20th, which will be embellished with more than 1,000 crystals. Her ambition is to have her own label, but in the meantime, like many of the others, she's keeping her options open.
For Ann Conmy, who won the Persil competition, the prize means more than just the €10,000. "It means I can believe in myself, that I can actually pursue a career in fashion. It is a great encouragement." She intends to apply to do a MA in Antwerp and in Central St Martin's in London, and hopes to get work experience in Paris.