Caoimhe Mac Neice specialises in pristine, precise clothing that embodies a delicate sensuality. Her light-as-air graduate collection Warp was snapped up by ID2015’s In the Fold exhibition, followed up by a well-received showing of her SS15 collection at ON/OFF, also at London Fashion Week. Here, we catch up with the up-and-coming designer to find out more.
Did you always want to become a fashion designer?
I think I probably always did, but not consciously. Growing up, I would always draw clothes in my books but I thought that maybe I wasn’t cut out for the fashion industry as it moves so quickly and I move quite slowly. I went to NCAD and I did my core year there, and by the time I had finished that, [fashion design] really was the only thing I wanted to do. I had first thought that I wanted to study painting, but I think that might have been a bit of a disaster.
Did you do any internships during college?
I did my internship at Peter Jensen in London over a summer while I was in college. I really enjoyed it there, his work is very feminine and we were working on these beautiful silk dresses. I mostly made up toiles, but I was also the fit model there which was hilarious as I couldn’t fit into most of the clothes! I was very lucky to be there as the team were very nice and friendly, and I think it was great to have a really positive work experience at a fashion label.
Up until that point, I found that in NCAD with pattern-cutting and making, there very much is a certain aesthetic there, and before I went on my internship I was much more interested in menswear. Being at Peter Jensen really taught me the beauty of making a simple dress that’s very feminine and elegant.
What are the particular concepts or ideals that drive your work?
I really design through construction, and the making of a garment. I never design through drawing. I wouldn’t really pay too much attention to fabric either, it’s always what the construction and the shape and silhouettes are. I would rarely use more than one fabric in a collection and the colours I use as well are very tonal, I like to get started straight away and start making things.
What is your design process?
Well, I am just figuring that out still as I’ve only done three collections, and have just come out of college, but what I generally do is think of an actual shape. For example, in my graduate collection I pattern cut shapes, like squares and rectangles, and I took those shapes and draped them in loads of different ways on the stand. I stayed very strictly to those shapes because I found I got much more interesting designs, and came more naturally to it. With the SS16 collection I decided to do the opposite to that, where I stuck with one silhouette, which was a very basic dress shape, and then tried to see how I could play around within that silhouette.
Why do the technical aspects of garment construction interest you?
I think it has something to do with the fact that my Dad is an engineer and my Mam is a science teacher, so trying to figure out how the technical aspects of [garment construction] works and fits together has always interested me. Pattern cutting was my favourite part of college, and still is now. Even now I don’t outsource that to anyone else, I do all of the pattern cutting myself.
Could you tell us about the inspirations for your SS16 collection?
It really started with me watching a lot of Netflix and binge-watching The X-Files! Like I said, I decided to design the SS16 collection very differently to how I had done before. I had visual references there, where as with all of the other collections I hadn’t, I would just start by making. For this collection it was all about Agent Scully and the ‘power suits’ she wore with huge covered buttons on them. The whole collection was kind of a daydream of ‘what if Scully let loose and loosened up her buttons’! It was kind of frivolous, and a joke with myself through the whole collection. Actually, with this collection I was listening to a lot of The Supremes and Diana Ross on loop so that was an influence too.
For the fabric, I used the same one throughout the collection, it was a really strange fabric. I was a very light crêpe but I fused it with a very heavy-weight bonding on the back. So it has a kind of strange quality, it’s almost like a wipe-able fabric. I was just thinking about laboratories and sterile things, it’s something you really have to see.
Which designers do you admire and why?
I really love Cristóbal Balenciaga and Hubert de Givenchy, they would probably be my favourite ones, and also Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons – particularly with those two designers, they have such a strong aesthetic but still remain incredibly fresh. With Balenciaga and Givenchy I really admire the silhouettes that they use, especially for the time that they worked in, the 1950s, it really was ground-breaking.
What are you working on next?
At the moment I’m in the middle of designing an AW collection, which will be the first AW collection that I’ve done, usually I gravitate towards SS. Right now I’m working on orders for the SS16 collection, making dresses for private clients. I also have a special capsule collection of black dresses in Made Store & Gallery on the top floor of the Powerscourt Townhouse, so that’s definitely worth checking out.
Caoimhe’s SS16 collection is made-to-order from her studio in Portobello, Dublin 8. You can contact her at info@caoimhemacneice.com and see more on her website at www.caoimhemacneice.com
Words: Honor Fitzsimons
Photos: Caoimhemacneice.com
