Words: Stephen Moloney
When we need to extol the virtues of, or simply defend, the state of Irish fashion, it’s easy to cart out the usual stable of names that have graduated from our national art college. Philip Treacy, Simone Rocha and Alan Taylor are exciting exemplars, but surely there’s more. The aforementioned alumni have all moved to brighter lights, which which surely provokes the question: ‘who’s left?’. The lights are certainly not turned off when that leap is made. Big shoes are always waiting to be filled.
Olwyn Kelly, Leanne Keogh and Polina Yakobson study fashion, whilst Adam Matthews injects his textiles training with a fashion bent. They’re a handful of NCAD’s Class of 2013 who show a rousing promise in their work. Between them, there have been internships with the likes of Richard Nicoll, Mary Katrantzou, Corrie Nielsen and Iris Van Herpen. I start by looking for attitudes towards recent remarks made by young gun J.W Anderson, who declared that “fashion design isn’t something that can be taught”. Olwyn takes him to task. “Construction and the technical stuff we learn here feeds the design process”, she says, also citing the deadlines, hours and pace as indicative of the very real professional pressures. Everyone agrees that a full involvement in the entirety of the process – in conceptual and practical terms – makes a fashion designer, and it’s easy for him to make remarks like that after he himself graduated from LCF.
What quickly dominates conversation are the obstacles that stand between ‘Irish fashion graduate’ and ‘fashion designer’. The financial strains are a given, with the problems of insurmountable expense and non-funding cropping up time and again. The conversation is peppered with frustrated calls for our own public and private support mechanisms like the British Fashion Council or Fashion East, to foster talent and stimulate growth. On top of this, it seems collective attitudes and perceptions towards fashion are skewed, putting the young, talented innovators at a further disadvantage.
“Fashion is a pretty new thing in Ireland, I think. It’s not engrained in our culture” Adam starts off, envisioning a woman. “She’s forty-six years old with money, she lives somewhere like Rathmines and wears things like gloves with buttons on them,” he says. “People go for labels, not innovation. They don’t want expressiveness or experimentalism,” says Polina as she shows me through her studio space. This is all coupled with the fact that size is everything in Ireland, where department stores or monthly glossies can monopolise the market and suit themselves based on a narrow definition, their definition, of what fashion is, immediately pushing fledgling and indigenous ideas out.
So, will these four be taking the well-trodden one-way path now typically expected of a recent fashion graduate? Whilst Adam plans to deviate by way of a Masters, the rest are fairly blunt in conveying the reality. “Everything is pushing us out of the country, which is sad. I am fully prepared to leave if it means more career opportunities, especially when the bulk of my career is going to be in my twenties,” Leanne admits. Olwyn agrees, saying it’s necessary for exposure. “I love Ireland. People don’t want to leave but they have no choice. In fashion design you’re putting yourself out there, so it might as well be on a world stage.” Polina brings a shade more optimism. “We can’t make many connections here. I will leave but I want to bring something back and invest in Ireland.”
All of the above could be construed as overbearing doom and gloom, and whilst there’s enough of it there, it doesn’t win out over an eagerness and genuine enjoyment that these four have for their discipline. “Textiles is definitely what I want to do for the rest of my life,” Adam affirms, proudly. “Because it is so difficult here, we are more grateful, and we work harder,” says Olwyn, with Leanne attesting, “I would not have wanted to study anywhere else.”
