Irish knitwear has a rich heritage, but once in a while, you find a designer that flips it on its head. A graduate of the highly regarded knitwear course at Central Saint Martin’s in 2011, Honor Fitzsimons moved to Amsterdam, Paris, and New York – where she worked for Diane Von Furstenberg – before returning to Dublin to develop her own brand. Since then she’s been snapped up by Brown Thomas’ CREATE initiative and turned heads with a series of contemporary, cutting edge yet wearable fashion knitwear collections. Astrid Luxemburg spoke to her about her designs.
So why knitwear?
I like to be able to make my own materials. I always wanted to do fashion, but when I began making garments, I became frustrated by the limited range of fabric available here. As soon as I got my hands on a knitting machine, and realised I could produce my own material, I loved it. There’s independence to knitwear that you don’t have in other areas of fashion. You have so much more control over the garment. Different knits behave in such different ways around the body, being able to change yarn, colour, texture and knit allows you to create something new again and again.
Do you design by hand, or using software like Illustrator?
I never use Illustrator! Everything is by hand. You never really know what it’s going to look like until its done, so it’s quite a tense process – especially as it can take two to three days to make a garment – but when it works, it really works.
Do you engage with Ireland’s identity or knitwear heritage in your designs?
I certainly respect the Irish knitwear heritage. My granny knitted for Aran and Donegal, and I love the Aran knit. I don’t think it’s celebrated or developed enough here. It’s turned into more of a tourist thing. But am I influenced by the Irish aesthetic? Probably not. I’d be more interested in moving things forward and seeing what else you can do with knit.
What’s your Spring/Summer collection about?
I wanted it to be really fun and bolshy, with lots of block colours. We took metal sheeting, bubble wrap and industrial materials as inspiration then played around with texture. I wanted to create very blocky, graphic garments that are still very comfortable to put on – so it’s classic in terms of material, but with more modern or unconventional finishes, like layered up cuffs.
Where do you tend to gather your references from?
Some of it’s quite personal. In the last collection, I was traveling a lot, so the angular shapes came from planes – plane drawings and metal sheeting. Then the Autumn/Winter 2014 I’m working on is based on my house on South Circular Road. I was doing up my room, and … you know that chipboard you only ever see in Ireland? There was that chipboard there, in a horrible soapy green. I painted over it in white and grey, then in all different colours, and eventually I actually came to really like the texture. I take different details like that from the house then abstract them.
Is it hard to create a Spring/Summer collection with knitwear?
It’s definitely a little bit more of a challenge. But then it’s never really that warm in Ireland! And to be honest, Spring/Summer comes into the shops in around February, so I never worry too much about putting long sleeves on things. You can definitely have more fun with Autumn/Winter though – you can play around with big coats and layer it up more.
You used neoprene in your last collection as well, right?
Yes, and I’ve brought that through into the new collection as well. I like using materials like leather, neoprene and knit because they don’t have hems or fraying – they’re very straight-forward, clean edged materials. They’re not fiddly. I want everything to be seamless.
So it’s quite practical, really. Is practical a dirty word in fashion?
I’m totally for the practical! When I make anything, the main question has to be: would I wear this? I don’t spend too much time getting ready in the morning, so I like to create things that people can just put on, for when you don’t want to look like a fashion victim, but you want to look interesting.
Would you test your designs on friends too?
I test on friends, and I test on my mam. My mam’s quite a stylish lady – she loves wearing the samples.
Honor Fitzsimons is stocked in Costume, Castle Market, Dublin 2 and online at www.honorfitzsimons.ie
