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GARB GARB words Sinéad O’Reilly Refresh your Rigo
ut... with a pair of ‘Big Face Earrings’ - a worthy alternative to this summer’s Picasso-earring compulsion - from freshly-launched Dublin label This Jewellery - @thisjewellery Refresh your Rigout... with our favourite pick from Odd Pears - the Super Mario-style florals will spruce up your sock drawer. €14; hensteethstore.com Refresh your Rigout... with some faux-fur tactility from Ruby Tuesday - the right kind of January Blues. €170, from Om Diva or made-to-measure on request. rubytuesdaydublin.com We sat down with Hannah Choy O’Byrne afterhours in Thirty Four, café below where her studio is located, to discuss her latest collection, a meditation on unlocking the spirt of our inner child and losing our inhibitions in an age when it feels like Big Brother is always watching. HEMLINES FLYING THE FLAG Few creatives have merged mediums as dextrously as Dublin polymath Aoife Dunne. With an extensive career trajectory that crosses continents with ease, she melds the worlds of costume design, fashion styling and large-scale artworks. Her feeds are bursting at the seams with project announcements. This summer, she’s added yet another feather to her jewelencrusted cap with a week’s residency in Margate Location House, whose “acid-aesthetic” interiors go hand-in-hand with Dunne’s personal style. “Walking-art-installation” is the simplest way to describe her look. The spoils of her creative output are now splashed across @efadone and @margatelocationhouse for all spectators to see. Between these visuals and Aoife’s freshly-minted website, you’ll find no better colour fix. aoifedunne.com HEMLINES HEMLINES words Amelia O’Mahony-Brady words Amelia O’Mahony-Brady words Amelia O’Mahony-Brady CALLED FROM THE BAR HATS OFF “Have we met before?” she asks. About a year ago outside Grogans I remind her. We were amongst a group of NCAD graduates huddled together for warmth, swapping tales of post-college tribulations and reminiscing. It was here that I first heard about Choy’s broken hands and the seemingly impossible graduate collection that followed, something of legend on the fashion course now though Choy would never admit it. Three months before the graduate show, Choy A CRYSTAL CORNUCOPIA IN THE WORDS OF PHILIP TREACY, “HATS MAKE PEOPLE FEEL GOOD, AND THAT’S THE POINT OF THEM.” WE TALK TO TWO SUCH LOCAL DESIGNERS WHO WANT TO INSTILL THE FEEL GOOD FACTOR. Right: cape by Sorcha O’Raghallaigh Below: Aoife Dunne at her studio London-goers, make sure to catch Fashion Space Gallery show Inside Arc which liberates precious archive pieces from their vaults. Replete with masterfully-crafted garments and accessories, highlights of the show include items from Givenchyera John Galliano, Alexander McQueen, and accomplished Irish designer Sorcha O’Raghallaigh. Her featured creation, a vibrant embroidered cape from her Central Saint Martins graduate collection boasting an abundance of semi-precious jewels and prayer beads, must be marvelled at in the flesh. Running until 28th July. fashionspacegallery.com IN THE REFLECTIVE AGE ASSISTANTS ANONYMOUS Industry sloggers/long-suffering interns should haul themselves over to @fashionassistants – their painfully-real postings (lifting the lid on impossible PR demands and invoice stresses) are a soothing antidote to Fashion Month’s maelstrom. #sos Evoking the contents of half-cut precious stones – all glimmering clusters and glittering crystals – Kim Fulton’s hand-crafted brooches are a sight for sore eyes. The LSAD alumna is currently immersed in a Professional Masters of Education in Art and Design at NCAD, coupling her studies with creatively-charged experiments in beading and embroidery. Fulton’s polychromatic work initially pulls from abstract shapes in her drawings, paintings, and photography, ultimately resulting in ultra-textured and intricate pieces that wouldn’t go amiss at a Gucci showcase. A godsend for those who value ornate accessories over monochromatic wares, Fulton is only set to further her maximalist label as 2019 ticks on, with adorned neck-pieces, wall-hangings, tapestries and other forms of wearable art set to be revealed soon. In the meantime, magpies can dine upon her recently relaunched website, kimzyful.com, with brooches retailing at €80 apiece. @kimzyfulton im ure asi d linear s” A es, w went over the handlebars of her bike and broke both of her arms. “Ah I’m grand!” she said after the fall, in what I now understand to be typical Choy fashion. 12 hours later she was on the operating table having a plate and three screws put into her arms. Bed-bound, unable to move her fused arms and with the first fitting in four days she realised she was “completely screwed”, in every sense of the word. With full recovery time estimated at 12 weeks, like funding and planning. But seeing what you’ve created being worn is a really amazing feeling, it sort of gives you a boost to get through those boring bits. What were you looking into for your SS16 collection? I star et d by looking at the artwork of Wesley Triggs and François Morelli, they’re very geoher tutors heavily advised that she defer the year. “They said ‘these are great, I can totally see these t very r pleopd and co lo . I th ugoey ret thse s uct pos nble it was.hapnyo e e s er attitt no hought twice ab rat throwing in thy nice 100% co on anory aa ou metric abstract artists. Their lines f ro med the shapes in the garments and the mood of the collection was insp eir d by a young Patti Smith, desig jus ns on e axele’, but I think th h ali d he tr ow ot cemh te n ith hl e migh ude wast have e io, I lo uden anoy’s decision to trun n mn. “Thoy toeel. I like rout a girurs, but I m eyser wriosuld wear a loet and then had to defer again. I knew I couldn’t wait around for a year. I’d just be moping and I Ch d crisp wearing co ottdle o akes ye u f ld me ab f esh colol who broke h lf w t and deferr d of black. When I’m designing I tend to think ‘fresher’ than maybe just designing for myself. wanted to get on with it.” For the six weeks when Choy was completely unable to move her arms, she adopted a Matisselike approach to work, enlisting the help of everyone from her granny to her boyfriend to help create the collection. Her inexperienced but diligent volunteers were delegated to cutting patterns and sewing garments. In the remaining six Could you tell us about your design process? I will start by looking around me, usually going to IMMA and compiling imagery on the internet. I tend to save a lot of imagery, not even specifically for that collection, but for the future. I also look at people around the streets and get the mood from how I’m feelTHE KNITWEAR WHISPERER Hot on the heels of his graduate show two years ago, Colin Burke burst into Brown Thomas CREATE with splashed silage coats and crocheted daffodils. The principal takeaway? Since day one, his label has shown zero signs of shrinkingviolet tendencies. Whilst experimenting with digital print to striking effect, his innovative strides into once-traditional territory – Aran knit and crochet techniques – are especially compelling to see. Far removed from the fisherman sweaters of yore (their charming attributes aside), Burke’s fusing of nostalgic Ireland and opulent materiality, from luxurious wools to silken trims, is seamless; two seemingly opposing elements which, in less capable hands, wouldn’t sit quite so well. A key part of Burke’s indelible presence is just how personally-rooted his design references are. His late grandmother, a fellow enthusiast of cut and cloth, has been a recurrent protagonist in Burke’s creative process, and her influence will re-emerge in ‘1932’: an upcoming collection primed to launch at the tenth Irish Fashion Innovation Awards on March 14, for which Burke is a nominee. Add another unveiling at the ARC Fashion Show later this month, and this crochet connoisseur has his hands (and needles) full. @colinburke_ A NEW COLLECTION AND ONLINE VENTURE SEW SUSTAINABILITY INTO THE FABRIC OF THEIR OPERATIONS. ir d her new mf urn t ise r e commut wao woould brain off. Thrk. Soa etimes yo ey t ke iaw t aord w r it t g sev w guess so t a nice little co ton ust. I used a reall e towel but anotther st d a lbmbt a p’s le rtha ver us stve h w fresen d unadul ualitt d side of her b o c a g 20,000 SHADES UNDER THE SEA e wot arnd not be worried ab re oy’s l v u at leslect lle weeks, her arms were beginning to regain mobility, though not very willingly. Yet the looming deadline, says Choy, “actually helped recovery [because] I just had to do it, I just had to sew a little bit more. I think I would have been lazier about the exercises otherwise.” Six outfits later she had a collection, to disbelief of pretty much everyone including her tutors. It’s clear that Choy does not like being told what she can or can’t do. After a year long stint designing for Dunnes Stores abiding by the constraints of the commercial industry where profits trump expression every time, she felt an urge to f What kind of woman do you see wearing old an exhibition of her personal work, though she founA g l wh ’os quite coly le n able in who th’t so r ea tsilay f argottten. “They were sti TWO JEWELLERY DESIGNERS FROM ROSCOMMON AND VENEZUELA TRACE THE PATH TO WHERE THEIR CAREERS ARE AT RIGHT NOW. WARNING — IT INVOLVED BAR WORK. lex her creative muscles again. Choy decided to h your designs? h t hos a s rong sense of their oll sligh ln sy ‘wearable’ b cau es y u co aran be s nu might o b have ae commerciaour husad of somewing t, but eph h aroretd habits wereney a e, w t tyle. I guess someetimse it’s h d to t urp h d abo ercihl side of y ur b uy your woen I remlised I do ’t want t e in thn image in yl ind e try.” F llo body his y c , she founy diffterent ap d I likd coatinue h w en tit h er o n wnk creeaatin heir o n way collections, eacmeb h a hy w o appreciates goolo k d desig nice qtera ey, and think that thrain ay ce gaan inoin. “Y u hara t thh iece ine pn e th to t eir wardrobe as a s ap a. still breaking that down. It’s t ka en a year to enjoy thWhark ae you working on next? eral more. I od n exercise in un c ing t a n,h t corpovete e wah oy y u think. The lastt yeler was PASSION FOR PRINT out it being commIer’ cial a d sl llin . I g on Al W16, so t allow her ide s t cep t an e coa e a c aract st enr yoursein.e g cursing and being self-effacing when discussing the concept of the collection because it’s rea y about not giving a fuck and just being really chilled.” jo beeading. The d karcere wh a bi f th t o d m lle k ctioh With fashion encircling far more than the sum of its parts, the many-layered magazine desks at The Library Project – their contents covering all aspects of design – give a muchneeded refresh to winter-worn minds. Current print issues and photo-books of interest include Purple and Girl Plays With Snake. @tlp_says e can uc o rorae feminine woith s me su hen dillo us ou t g th Edel Traynor is stocked at Atelier 27, Drury Street, Dublin 2. You can see ore of her work at edeltraynor.com m currn t een y wogrk t’ins slow y getting bherk tac ’s ge o oing hat I used to do” w to be a little cha.nge-up and be much d kar er than p Ch io s co t coio s. I n, her least cohe phcital to dphra ate since her departh e from Dunnes, ies in her reflerk, sn of a’s going ti o be a bioint w ere sh tic. It y of Sally Mann, ture mood she creat s a woctio o it n arr val to a p t m hore roman will be a to a h m m fre le y. Ch y beocomesbtle k y but not insin er nig ts a scw ysin o dress ue con-p n. “I juer fo d up b lf With Pantone picking ‘Living Coral’ as their latest Colour of the Year, what better feed to source your newseason shades from than @coralmorphologic? Their art-meets-science portraits of algae – from the verdant Favia Fluorescence to the bright-pink Phymanthus crucifer – should be a serious presence in anyone’s wardrobe choices. #coralmorphologic ll nctio’m looking at tmmero ogWASTE NOT. WANT NOT. tipe a ayn n be totalld a s udio s nace an e thnt. I like d w h h ing, and put them all together and that would be my research process. I would go on to sketch and take elements from painters I like, it tends to mostly be artists that I’m inspired by. Then I’d start toileing up and it evolves from the design work. It’s nice to sew up a few designs and see how they’re working together, and at that stage of the making I would put a critical eye to it. That’s the most exciting part of doing a collection – seeing it come to life. We produce everything in Dublin, as it’s still small scale, I would work on the samples and toiles, but my machinist sews up all of the production. It’s easily contained at the moment which is nice because I get to have control over everything and be very particular. LYON LORING These Stoneybatter vintage sellers are bursting with vibrant stock this month, having planned two continent-crossing trips for the first half of January. I can’t guarantee you’ll nab a Technicoloured Dreamcoat like the one I picked up from Lyon Loring two years ago, pictured, but no doubt there’ll be a worthy equivalent nestled in their rainbow rails. @lyonloring Do you have any favourite designers or style icons? In terms of designers, I like the new wave of London designers like Craig Green, who has a really interesting style, he has a great balance of creativity and conceptual work, and still manages to be commercial. I like Faustine Steinmetz for her technique and fresh colours. I guess these are designers that have a nice signature and know their brand. I think everybody loves FKA twigs, she’s got such a cool style that I think anyone would love to see her in their clothes. Kazumi – 36 Molesworth Street – T 083-355 17 80 18 18