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Our fashion designers make waves globally, so why don’t we value their cultural contribution here?

Arts Act of 2003 makes no mention of textiles, design or craft, an indication of official neglect

Sybil Connolly’s Kinsale cape made the cover of Life. She employed 100 people in the 1950s and lived and worked in Merrion Square for over forty years. Yet there is nothing to commemorate her, no bust, no statue, no memorial, no plaque.
Deirdre McQuillan's picture
Deirdre McQuillan
Sun Aug 18 2024 - 06:00

In January, renowned Irish milliner Philip Treacy was one of 13 people who received the Presidential Distinguished Service Award for the Irish Abroad in the category of arts, culture and sport. Other outstanding Irish fashion stars making an impact elsewhere include Simone Rocha, who was invited to guest Jean Paul Gaultier’s haute couture collection in Paris, a first for an Irish designer. JW Anderson was cited by Time as one of the most influential people of 2024, while Dubliner Seán McGirr is creative head of Alexander McQueen. Róisín Pierce, who has elevated Irish lace and crochet to worldwide acclaim, has been taken under the wing of Comme des Garcons in Paris. Laura Weber designed the Irish Olympic teams’ parade uniforms and Sinéad O’Dwyer won the €50,000 Zalando award, enabling her to show at the recent Copenhagen Fashion Week.

All are ambassadors for this country and its skills in fashion and textiles yet they are not officially considered part of Irish culture.

The Arts Act of 2003 defines the arts (and the current annual Arts Council budget is €134 million) as “any creative or interpretative expression whether traditional or contemporary in whatever form and includes in particular visual arts, theatre, literature, music, dance, opera, film, circus and architecture and includes any medium when used for those purposes”. No mention is made of textiles, design or craft.

This official definition of Irish culture means there is little State funding or support for fashion and textiles other than private initiatives such as Create or the Golden Fleece awards which embrace material culture. Though fashion and textiles notionally fall under the Design and Crafts Council of Ireland’s remit (funded by Enterprise Ireland, currently at €4.5 million annually), fashion is only a small element of their Future Makers awards, the prime educational focus being on jewellery and ceramics.

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Alex Milton, NCAD head of design, argues that “fashion is a global industry with wider applications and transcends a lot of sectors and until we stop treating it as a cottage industry we will never compete on a world stage”.

One talented young Irish fashion designer, Rion Hannora, who treats the body as an exhibition space, was rejected from both the Arts Council Agility Award and the Basic Income for Arts scheme because her method of expression artistically is through clothing. She was told by an Arts Council officer that fashion is not a form of visual arts since it is “commercial”. Eligibility, she was told in an email, “is based on the definition of the arts as contained in the Arts Act 2003″.

Irish history is embedded in cloth; how Donegal tweed became an acclaimed textile is a story in itself

As an economic force, design is growing exponentially in Ireland and the sector is worth more than €2.6 billion. In the European Union, three of the five largest corporations are French luxury fashion companies and they sell the brand of France. In Ireland the new Creative Industries roadmap includes digital creative industries but there is no mention of analogue design, in other words material culture, ie fashion and textiles.

Do the powers that be not understand the creative process that goes into designing and constructing a garment as a form of architecture? Christian Dior in a groundbreaking address on the aesthetics of fashion to the students of the Sorbonne in 1955 argued that “as a designer I am obliged to follow the principles of architecture”.

It is old-fashioned thinking and contemptuous to dismiss fashion as “commercial” and not recognise its increasing importance as an expression of creativity, identity, self-expression and transformative soft power.

The recent celebration in many Irish embassies abroad of St Brigid’s Day recognised the connection in new ways. Ambassadors such as Patricia O’Brien in Rome, Geraldine Byrne Nason in Washington and Elizabeth McCullough in Copenhagen are proud to promote Irish fashion. Ambassador Niall Burgess in Paris hosted Róisín Pierce’s recent show. President Michael D Higgins flies the flag for Irish tweed.

Yet the last time the National Museum of Ireland in Collins Barracks mounted a display of fashion and textiles, The Way We Wore, was 24 years ago. The Ib Jorgensen retrospective has been running for more than a decade. Is that the best our National Museum can do?

Irish history is embedded in cloth; how Donegal tweed became an acclaimed textile is a story in itself. The beauty of Irish handmade lace and crochet, which has a long history and saved many a family from destitution after the famine, is a testament to the skills of the women of Ireland. The glories of the Irish Arts and Crafts movement of the early 1900s were highlighted for the first time not at home but in Boston in March 2016.

Textiles have also been a subversive art medium and fibre art is now emerging in various museums, from the Pompidou in Paris in 2018 to the Tate Modern in London 2022 and recent ones at the Barbican, MoMA and Vienna’s MAK Museum. The Aran knit, our most famous textile (that recently set the style world swooning in The Banshees of Inisherin) is considered by MoMA in New York as one of the most powerful and enduring examples of 20th-century clothing and design. Yet the closing of Ó Máilles in Galway in April after more than 80 years promoting Aran handknits is another nail in the coffin of Irish heritage.

The woman to whom credit is due for giving Ireland a place in world fashion history using Irish tweed and linen was Sybil Connolly. She employed 100 people in the 1950s at a time when emigration from this country was at its highest and lived and worked in Merrion Square for more than 40 years. Yet there is nothing to commemorate her, no bust, no statue, no memorial, no plaque.

In other countries the official definition of culture and arts is broad. French culture is defined by the arts, architecture, gastronomy and fashion. In Italy it is similarly wide-ranging, encompassing art, design, fashion and food, with fashion described as an expression of artistic values and creativity. In the UK it is also comprehensive; while Irish fashion designers get little official support and recognition in their own country, in the UK they are supported by the British Fashion Council.

It is high time for official Ireland to revisit the Arts Act of 2003 and give Irish fashion and textiles the recognition they deserve.