Meet the new Irish fashion pack – the schoolgirl who is a top model, the fashion industry maven making connections worldwide, the super-cool stylist, a designer who tells stories through her clothes and another with a hotline to Lady Gaga. DEIRDRE MCQUILLANreports
SORCHA O’RAGHALLAIGH
26, fashion designer and illustrator
THE FIRST Irish designer to have an entire window on London’s Oxford Street devoted to her work, Sorcha O’Raghallaigh is one of three young UK-based womenswear designers selected as part of Selfridges “Bright Young Things” initiative which is running until the end of February. “It’s been a really good start to the year and it was great to have a space to create my world and show it to a completely different audience,” she says.
The window’s centrepiece is a three metre high mannequin in a blood red dress and a heavily embellished mask “to make it look a bit creepy”, she says, in a set inspired by the 1970s cult movie Holy Mountain. Selfridges has bought her complete spring/summer collection and is selling it in a pop-up shop within the store and online.
“It’s my first commercial order and I want it to prove to people that I can make commercial clothes, clothes that people can wear as well as the more dramatic pieces,” she says.
The collection features full-length skirts, cropped jackets, blouses and dresses in hot Indian colours with separate collars and headpieces as accessories.
From Birr, Co Offaly, O’Raghallaigh who studied fashion design in LSAD and St Martin’s in London sprang to fame when Lady Gaga wore one of her creations on The Graham Norton Show. Since then she has continued to make pieces for the singer.“I get a call about every month and I make a lot of stuff, not all of which is worn, but it pays the rent and it’s fun and intense.”
Based in Homerton, east London, she works from home, where a second bedroom serves as a studio. Having married last summer, she intends to stay in the UK, though she says, “my heart is in Ireland, but I am not ready to move back yet because professionally I hope to keep going here.”
Religious iconography continues to fascinate her and inspire her work with its layering, embellishment and use of lace and crochet.
“I am drawn to the idea of religious celebration and ritual like the Mexican Day of the Dead, probably because of my upbringing. My parents weren’t particularly religious but my grandmother was obsessed with it and I think I have a better appreciation aesthetically of it and how people can be so consumed by it.”
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DANIELLE WINCKWORTH
17, model
HER CAREER as a model is barely two years old, but schoolgirl Danielle Winckworth from Rathmichael in Shankill is already hitting the catwalks of London and New York. She has appeared in magazines and catalogues and according to Rebecca Morgan of Morgan the Agency, agents in Milan and Paris are “chomping at the bit” to book her. With her high brow, cool blue eyes and blonde hair, she could be straight out of a Nordic movie. “She’s unusual in that her looks are more those of a film star than a traditional model,” says Morgan.
The youngest of three sisters, Winckworth’s career began completely by chance. Her mother, Sari, an interior designer, was at a dinner party where one of the guests was a model scout. She urged Danielle to go to an agency and try modelling. “I really didn’t want to go, but I’m now glad that I did,” she recalls.
Last June she went to London and then New York, accompanied by her mother, where she instantly got work modelling for DKNY and others at Fashion Week. “It was a lot of fun and I did 20 castings a day,” she says.
Now in fifth year, she wants to concentrate on her studies and is putting her blossoming career on hold for the time being. “When I started I missed so many days in fourth year but then it didn’t really matter. Now it’s different and I am not working as much because I need to catch up, so I do have to turn things down.”
She has just done a shoot for Sephora, the beauty retailer, as well as a bridal shoot and one for Nordstrom in Los Angeles “which was a pool party shoot and wasn’t really like work.” As to future plans: “I’ve always been interested in fashion, but now that I am a model I know more about the business and maybe I could do something with languages and fashion, perhaps an Erasmus programme in another country.”
DEIRDRE GORMAN
24, fashion incubator specialist
“I studied how other countries faced problems setting up fashion industries. Canada and the UK have got really strong templates of fashion incubation that benefit their economies, so I developed a template for Ireland, based on our industry,” she explains. Her MA was completed last June.
She was always interested in fashion, but a turning point was a work experience stint with Style Tex, a clothing factory in Artane, during her portfolio year in Coláiste Dhulaigh in Coolock. “I saw 20 factory workers laid off when the Irish manufacturing closed down and moved overseas, and there was such a negative view of fashion. I got the impression that if you wanted to succeed in the industry, you had to move abroad. I knew I’d not be able to do that and it made me determined to make my career in Ireland.”
“I wanted to know more about why everything was so negative here and why it was always necessary to leave the country to succeed.” Her thesis explored the supports designers needed to stay and thrive in Ireland, and incubation was key. “Fashion incubation, sharing knowledge, can operate like a network. To succeed it needs to begin small scale,” she argues.
Her research is ongoing and is already helping the expansion of a unit with 20 fashion designers under its roof in Dundee, New Zealand. She is doing research for TCF, a global textile, clothing and footwear organisation about to launch a site and is also looking at ways in which funding organisations in Europe could be classified as incubators.
“Some places might be renting out machines, others offering financial advice or information on how to set up a pop-up shop. Pop-up shops are important because they give designers a sense of retail for a short time.”
Meanwhile, she is currently working in Next on Grafton Street to earn some money. But her mission, to set up a structure to help Irish fashion designers develop their vision into viable businesses, remains steadfast.
LISA MARIE McCARROLL
26, stylist
WITH HER blue nails and blue vintage Dr Martins, pale make-up and vivid orange fur coat, everything about Lisa Marie McCarroll reflects a forceful and determined personality. An up-and-coming stylist, she has collaborated with a lot of student photographers, in particular Ivana Patarcic, a young Dublin-based Croatian working in black and white. When it comes to ideas for shoots, each inspires the other and their work together has a certain film noir urbanity and atmosphere.
“She boosts my confidence, she tells me how talented and serious I am. Before meeting her I was ready to throw in the towel,” McCarroll admits. Most of their shoots have been in interesting venues. “Locations are way more exciting. I get bored in the studio,” she says.
McCarroll initially studied law at Portobello College, but abandoned it after two years. In 2004 she took a job in Topshop in Dublin dressing mannequins and started a successful career as a visual merchandiser.
“I learned management skills, how to lead, how to deal with people and became head management stylist for the region.” Headhunted by HM, she moved, but didn’t like working there and last year she opted to go freelance. “I got everything I could out of Topshop – it’s what started me off styling inanimate objects.”
Her ability to put clothes together in interesting ways comes naturally. Her portfolio includes a scarf shoot in the grounds of Barmeath Castle in Co Louth, poetic test shots of the ballerina Breffni Holohan and a promotional portrait of Michelle Massey, winner of The Apprentice on TV3.
Her sleek styling of Stephen Gannon, a drummer with the band Kit Karate led to the image appearing in Dazed Confused. Her most recent work was the December cover of Totally Dublin, a portrait of the Rubber Bandits as the holy family in a photograph by Philip White. “I borrowed the Baby Born from a friend,” she smiles.
She is a hardcore charity shopper with an unerring eye for a bargain: a stellar acquisition was a cream lambskin Chanel bag which she got for €200 on eBay. Recent finds were a Ralph Lauren cricket blazer for €5 and a fringed black shawl she got in Oxfam for €7.
“The further out of town you go, the better,” she advises. “Teenagers down the country don’t shop in charity shops and you find gems there because they haven’t been pillaged.”
NATALIE COLEMAN
33, fashion designer
TOMORROW, items from Natalie Coleman’s new fashion collection “I Love Me” will be highlighted at the RDS Showcase fashion show, styled by Sonia Reynolds. The Carrickmacross-based designer, who will show in New York and Paris in February and March, is acquiring a growing reputation as a talented and imaginative designer with a storytelling approach to her work.
Her silk prints and slogan T-shirts have been winter winners in Brown Thomas and fans include Sharon Corr and Kathryn Thomas, recently seen on The Late Late Show wearing Coleman’s clothes. Her new collection will contain, she says, “a perfect sweater, the perfect dress for a first date and the coolest leather pants”. It will also have her signature prints, this time of unicorns and ostriches, and will include a bag for the first time.
Now operating from a garage at her family home in Broomfield, outside Carrickmacross, Coleman’s interest in fashion started early. “My mother Bridie was obsessed with clothes and trained to be a buyer in London when I was a child. She had amazing style. I always loved drawing and was interested in fine art, but never had a fashion plan – it was almost a fluke that I ended up going to LSAD to study fashion.”
Her graduate collection in 1996 was inspired by Grey Gardens, the true story of a reclusive mother and daughter living in the Hamptons “and I am still obsessed with them,” she says.
After college, she stayed in Limerick for a year buying and selling old clothes, before leaving for London and doing an MA in St Martins. Later, in New York, she worked for a design company which “let me design and play with pattern and I learnt a lot from them,” she recalls.
She set up her own label NatalieBColeman in 2010 and now supplies Brown Thomas, where her new collection goes in sale in March. She also sells through Bow in the Powerscourt Townhouse Centre and in 15 stores worldwide.
“I create a lot of fabrics through print and I like to tell a story through my clothes.” For her recent Absolut commission, she created a detailed dress in handmade lace and leather. “I love lace, especially handmade lace, because it is Irish and relates to where I am from, and the whole story behind it – how it was used for priests’ garments and for their shrouds. There is so much heritage and it is a real Irish craft.”
