The world of Irish Fashion recently lost one of its greatest champions and tireless industry campaigners. Many Irish manufacturers can look back over the last 45 years and thank Leonora Curry for her unbounded enthusiasm and professional support. Perhaps the longest-retained consultant by An Coras Tracht ala, Leonora brought her wide knowledge of fashion and technology to the Irish industry year after year, developing a unique relationship with many people.
In 1995 the National College of Art and Design conferred on Leonora the Honorary Award of Associateship of the National College of Art and Design, in recognition of the immense contribution she had made to the Irish fashion industry, and for her personal interest and involvement with the college and its students. In the early 1990s Leonora established a bursary for the furtherance of technical skill in industry from her London and Paris connections. The first recipient of the award was a student from NCAD. On many occasions she would visit the fashion department and talk to the students, helping them with advice and contacts.
Leonora's career was long and varied, encompassing every aspect of fashion from fashion design, fashion journalism, fashion education and fashion consultant in both the technical and construction areas. Initially she trained in fashion in St Martin's College of Art and then went straight into industry, producing catalogues for English and Continental fashion houses before joining the influential journal, Tailor and Cutter. Later, with characteristic insight, vigour and influence, and with the assistance of her husband George Barden, Leonora set up the journal Maker-Up which was the precursor of today's World Clothing Manufacturer.
Her journalistic skills served the wider Irish public when she covered the Paris couture and ready-to-wear shows for The Irish Times in the 1950s.
While Leonora had first joined Tailor and Cutter as a fashion artist, she later ran their school for tailoring and cutting, where she nurtured not only her own all-important technical skills but also those of a great number of students. Indeed, nurturing the interests and skills of young people has been one of her greatest contributions to fashion history and to the development of fashion in this country in particular. It was while teaching tailoring and pattern cutting at the British Institute for Dress Designers that she met Michael Donnellan of Ballinebough, Co Roscommon.
It is probable that this meeting triggered Leonora's great interest and affection for Ireland. Michael became a lifelong friend of both herself and her husband, and ultimately they shared their London and Paris homes between them. It was partly in honour of Michael's memory that Leonora set up the student's bursary.
Michael Donnellan became better known as the couturier Michael of Carlos Place, whose clients included Vivien Leigh and Claudette Colbert. He made a further contribution to design history as a co-founder of the Society of London Fashion Designers along with such names as Norman Hartnell, Hardy Amies and Digby Morton. Michael Donnellan, like Leonora, was a greatly gifted designer and pattern cutter whose skills were sought by Balenciaga, who is perhaps this century's most distinguished designer.
Leonora did a great deal to build the fashion industry in this country through her experience and foresight and her very hard work. On a more intimate level, she watched, nurtured and built up particular students through college and on into their early careers.
The fashion and textiles department of the NCAD has been central to the development of the fashion industry in Ireland today and Leonora Curry has been the greatest support to the fashion department, both publicly and privately.
She had a total commitment to fashion and the clothing industry and its people, and long after others have put away the scissors to enjoy retirement, she continued to offer her help and enthusiasm to the industry and to the people in it. She had an unerring ability to see talent and to encourage it.
In retrospect, her career has also mirrored a period of enormous change in both fashion and lifestyle. She never lost her unerring eye, her instinctive respect for quality and finish, her understanding of cloth and cut and yet managed to bridge the differing times from Dior to Galliano with an enduring knowledge and wisdom.
She will be greatly missed by many.
F.McD.