piaIrish design is alive and well, attracting business abroad as well as at home. Deirdre McQuillan highlights the work of just five of our emerging fashion designers
KATIE O'BRIEN
Katie O'Brien arrived for this interview wearing an English public-school blazer, French grandad-style long johns, a long cream silk knit vest, (another piece of French men's underwear), boxing boots, a sequin belt from Top Shop, a black leather bag by YSL (bought in a sale for €100) , and with antique keys and a pearl necklace hanging around her neck. She is a graduate in molecular biology from University College Dublin, and a business graduate from the Smurfit School - but her passion is clothes. "I find things that look good and put them together," she says. "I am a terrible hoarder."
Her collection Recreate, currently in Top Shop, is a gathering together of uniforms and accessories from the 1940s, decorated with her own additions, such as interesting collar details or sequin seaming to give them an extra edge. There are Swiss pea coats, Gendarme jackets, Italian parkas and French combat F1 flyers. The most extraordinary item is a French surtout or overall, a heavy duster-style coat in cotton canvas, which is an all-weather item designed to be worn on horseback. She has styled it with upholstery tassels. "What I love about uniforms is that everything serves a function, and if there are details like hooks on belts, they are there for a reason. I add things to them to make them contemporary or to add an extra bit of interest because some things need to be brought forward."
Sourcing vintage things, trawling through markets on both sides of the Atlantic to the point of even arranging her holidays around her pursuits, has been a long-time infatuation. "I am into men's clothes because of their simplicity, and I am interested in the whole idea of the dandy and how dandies wore clothes and used details such as collars in a special way. I bought a book about clowns and then made collars for some of the items in the collection. I want to do more with collars, so they become almost like pieces of jewellery. My way of dressing is to buy a top in Dunnes and then add these beautiful things."
Having finished college last year, O'Brien worked as a stylist, and was spotted by Top Shop scouts who asked her to come up with a vintage collection for their Dublin shop. "Taking old things and making a consistent collection took a lot of thought. Besides, I didn't want to sell a lot of my stuff." Now she is planning further collections, such as one based on public school uniforms. "I have a lot of boys' tail coats, for example, and tailor-made school jackets, but a lot of things are hard to get. You have to have other ideas, so it forces you into continually evolving."
The daughter of an artist, she has an eye for "the look of things" and is more excited by old, well-made clothes than by contemporary fashion. "It is exciting that someone like me can follow what they really love doing. It is what I always wanted to do, and there is finally a reason to do it."
Katie O'Brien, 086-3855821. Recreate can be found in Top Shop, St Stephen's Green, Dublin 2. Prices: €8.50 and €42 for badges and cuffs, €49 for trousers, jackets from €100 to €210
HELEN JAMES
Helen James grew up in the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin, where her father was the Islamic curator. She admits that oriental influences have remained a strong aspect of her style. She is a textile graduate of the National College of Art and Design, and spent 10 years in New York as a freelance designer, selling her ideas for handbags, scarves and T-shirt prints to companies such as Donna Karan, Club Monaco and Levis, among others. Two years ago she returned to Ireland with her musician husband and their two children, and now lives and works in a restored farmhouse in Castlepollard, Co Westmeath.
Her silk scarves and belts in vibrant colours and shapes have been stocked by Costume in Castle Market, Dublin 2, and now that her children are getting a little older, she has more time to start developing and expanding her production. The coming season's collection, for example, includes belts, leather bags, tops, scarves and a very beautiful printed silk shrug. She does all her printing at home herself, and much of it is inspired by Chinese embroidery. "I love the Chinese use of space; they are not afraid of it," she says, citing a piece of embroidery in the new Chester Beatty, something with which she was familiar, even as a child. "I don't do a whole collection each season, but continue to run certain pieces and styles in different colours, and discontinue others. I think of my pieces as stylish classics that last, rather than trend-setting fashion."
Stockists include Costume and Five Scarlet Row in Dublin, Ella Maria in Limerick, Juju in Greystones, Melie B in Killaloe, Co Clare and Design House, Galway. www.helen-james.com (website in preparation). Prices: scarves, €75, obi belts €160, kimono jackets €275.
EILIS BOYLE
Eilis Boyle was born in Curaçao in the Caribbean, and reckons that she went to around 13 schools when she was growing up. She believes her Spanish mother has been the greatest influence on her development as a designer. Her father, an engineer, is from Ballybunion, and her mother from Granada. The pair met in London in the 1960s. The family was constantly on the move, and Eilis spent her childhood in countries such as Venezuela, Bolivia, Japan and Saudi Arabia. "We were quite isolated, and my mother was good at making things; she loved cooking and embroidery and made dresses for my dolls from her own clothes. Maybe that's why I love making clothes. I always knew I wanted to do something in design."
Boyle's first collection of chiffon and cotton dresses worn with silky knits and cashmere shrugs has a rare elegance and beauty. "They are not about selling sex; they are feminine, but in a sensual not a sexual way. It is about feeling pretty." Her fabrics are luxurious and soft and she wants to keep them that way. "I don't want to compromise and move into artificial fibres. I want to keep the collection simple, because it makes the garments more eternal." She likes the hands-on aspect of fashion. "I make clothes out of knitted fabrics. I think in a fabric way about knit. My knits are drapes and based on squares and rectangles."
If her upbringing was different to most, so was her training. Having studied languages at university in Madrid, she went to an Italian design school in the city, where industrial design, graphics and interior design were taught. "It was based on the principles of Bauhaus, and we studied the psychology of shape and colour and methods of creativity." She was also taught sewing and finishing and pattern cutting. "Balenciaga is an enormous influence in Spain, and the seamstresses in Madrid had worked with him." But she believes that Spain does not prepare designers for industry.
Back in Ireland, her aunt in Co Kerry gave her a knitting machine, and she used the internet to learn how to use it. She also spent five years working with Lainey Keogh and "went all over the place with her - LA, New York, Paris".
Her first collection was shown in Paris 12 months ago, in a gallery in the Marais, and was "found" by two Irish boutiques, Kalu in Naas and Melie B in Killaloe, Co Clare. "I always think it is special if they find you." She is married to a Mexican engineer, and now lives in Clonee, Co Meath, where she has a small studio and where she hopes to develop her clothes line and also design homewares such as candles, blankets and furniture. "I want to avoid jumping on that high-speed train of fashion. I am not into trends."
Eilis Boyle's collection can be found in Kalu, Naas and Melie B in Killaloe, Co Clare, 087-9115685, www.eilisboyle.com. Prices: €150 for a bolero top; €500/€600 for a long chiffon dress.
JENNIFER WHITTY
"I like elevating things from the everyday - it's in keeping with the ethos in dressing today; little differences can make everything more special," says Jennifer Whitty, a prize-winning National College of Art and Design graduate from Portmarnock, who is specialising in menswear. Her career has just been given a major boost by winning the Grand Prix in the Onward New Generation Design Awards in Japan, where she beat more than 16,000 international contestants. The prize-money was a million yen, about €9,000. Now she will have the opportunity to have her own stand at the international fashion fair in Tokyo next July and in January 2007, premiering her first collections.
Her winning outfit was a play on the three-piece suit, and made of Glen check. The design was inspired by images of Zimbabwe taken from a book given to her by her mother, who was a painter. The jacket and gilet were embellished with smocking, ruffling, tucking and pleats, and the trousers had an elasticated waist. "I like using traditional fabrics in a more organic way," she says. "I wanted to bring together an awareness of the male form, but in a comfortable, relaxed manner, with traditional attention to detail such as jetted and hidden pockets."
Having graduated with a diploma from Limerick School of Art and Design in 1999, she worked with Sharon Wauchob in Paris for six months and with Louis Copeland in Dublin for a further six. "I was always fascinated by tailoring because it is the elimination of excess fabric. I wanted to work with the volume of fabric, and started looking at decoration and protection in menswear, like armour, as well." She discovered, for instance, that smocking was a technique developed to let rain run off the shoulders.
Describing herself as a "very physical designer", she likes to allow an idea to develop on the body. One of her pieces is a heavy, hand-stitched piece of "modern armoury" made from suede and glove leather, constructed by hand and worn with Japanese work-wear trousers. "I used John Hanley tweed, and a glass printing technique, so it looks muddy and wet," she says. "I wanted to use leather, a sexually-charged fabric, to bring a seductive, but non-threatening charge to menswear."
Her experience has also included a stint in New York, and she worked with Magee in Co Donegal for a year, after which she applied to the Royal College of Art in London, "where I trained my eye and learned how things could become more feasible." Now she sees opportunities in the bridge between bespoke and ready-to-wear. "You can never learn enough about your craft. I decided I wanted to push design forward, to fit somewhere between the formal and the casual, and the time has now come to make my own collection." Already she has received commissions from a British poet and has set up a studio in the Oval in London, where she will launch her first collection as well as do some part-time teaching or illustration.
Jennifer Whitty can be contacted at 087-7604399 or 00-44-79-60747504. Prices: negotiable, depending on work involved and quality of fabric, but starting at around €100 for tops.
John McCormack, a 27-year-old Dubliner, won the 2005 Nokia Designer of the Year award while still only in his second year at the Grafton Academy. His innovative tailoring and fine finishing impressed the judges. Now he is holding down a job, studying part-time, providing the Design Centre with a collection, and also meeting the demands of a small private clientele. During the day, he works for Styletex, an Irish manufacturing company with a team of designers and pattern-cutters making ladieswear separates, including maternity wear. It is a solid grounding in the commercial world in which he is learning an enormous amount
about his chosen field.
Initially he trained in fashion in Belfast, but quit to do an arts degree in history and geography in Maynooth. After graduation, he worked in a financial institution as a pensions administrator, but discovered that office life and nine-to-five was not for him. "So after two years I decided to go back on the creative road and returned to the Grafton Academy.
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Having completed six weeks' work experience with Styletex, the company offered him a full time job.
"Art was always my favourite subject at school and I like using my hands. I was always interested in the elements of fashion – the more flamboyant aspects of dressing up. It was full of glamour, but it was only when I went to college that I started to think about fashion as what a woman wants to wear. I purposely took the commercial edge because it is something I want to make a living from, and it has to be attractive to people. I am only starting and I still find it hard to have that balance between the industry and the public."
On the back of his Nokia success, he made a small collection, a mix of tailoring and jerseys, which sold out in the Design Centre within a month. So now he "drops in" pieces every Friday as he makes them. "I don’t have two seconds to myself. It is like two full-time jobs. Now I am having to turn down private clients."
His approach to clothes, he says, is essentially about simplicity. "I used to think about big couture gowns and fabulous prices, but now I think it is all about commerciality. People want to buy something nobody else has, to stand out, but at affordable prices." The irregular lines of his winning tweed outfits, the ruched trousers, the tucked-down collars and the cowl neck were inspired by a visit to the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao. "It was playing with the conservative cuts of tailoring, yet keeping in mind that you wanted somebody to wear it." Current shifts in fashion, he agrees, are more about a covered-up silhouette, "but still looking sexy and glamorous." Where once he saw himself going to London or New York to further his career, now he wants to stay home. "I would be mad to leave now."
John McCormack, 087-9722602. His collection can be found in the Design Centre, Powerscourt, Dublin 2. Prices: start at around €80 for a jersey bolero, €250 for a dress, and go up to €360 for a tailored jacket