Celestine Cooney, the Irish-born, internationally known stylist and fashion director, is unusually easy to approach. "I don't tend to compromise," she says. "I want to always know that I'm free. I don't have an agent. I'm probably the only stylist at my level who doesn't have one."
Why not? “I don’t know. I’m able to manage myself. It’s hard sometimes. But life is where I want it to be and what I desire it to be, so I don’t see why that has to change. What feels right, I’ll do.”
Railing against convention and traditional restraints, and reframing romance and nostalgia, are common motifs in the life and work of this uncommon woman. A countryside childhood with brothers and a sister has set a pattern that continues on in London’s non-pastoral environment, where Cooney has been cutting a swathe for more than a decade.
“We lived at the bottom of the hill of Tara, so we were obsessed with stars. We had a telescope and used to watch them at night. It was a free and unsolicited childhood I had. I grew up riding horses and fishing. We used to spend days fishing. Not hours, mind: days.”
Troublesome child
After leaving school at 16 (“I was a troublesome child,” she says, and she wasn’t allowed to do transition year), she went to Coláiste Dhúlaigh in Dublin to study film production. She roomed with a family who lived near the college and got a job at the Coolock Leisureplex. “I basically ran Quasar,” she says, laughing. It was a formative and fun experience for a “country girl who went to boarding school”.
The poetry-loving girl from Meath has nurtured a fruitful, high-profile career styling shoots for magazines such as Teen Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, V, Muse and Dazed and Confused. She has recently wrapped up a shoot in Colorado. Her styling extends to the catwalk as well. She styles Preen by Thornton Bregazzi. Before that, it was close friend Simone Rocha. And before that, Cooney's canny styling for Ashish helped to propel the then fledgling label on to fashion pages worldwide.
That wasn't the initial plan. Before handing in her book to Dazed and Confused, Cooney was writing for The Dubliner, almost on a whim. "Moving to London was never on my agenda, so when it came up, I was like, yeah, there's a reason."
She assisted the then fashion director Nicola Formichetti for two years, before leaving to freelance. "When I came to work for him I just wanted to be the best assistant ever. But when you stop caring about something, you're not good at it any more. And I've always wanted to be the best at what I try to do." They parted on good terms. One of Cooney's first solo shoots was for Dazed.
Cooney is also the fashion director for Twin Magazine, a biannual hardback bookazine that focuses on fashion and art. She has been at the fashion helm since its inception. "We wanted to produce something female-oriented, independent, strong, intelligent. Interviews with people who have an impact. And the fashion in Twin is [for] that kind of girl: a strong, intelligent girl."
Her work, Cooney says, is a recording of memories. She reels off a few lines from TS Eliot's The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock: "For I have known them all already, known them all / Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons / I have measured out my life with coffee spoons."
She continues: “I can tell you where I was emotionally with each issue. I can remember perfectly where I was. It’s like I measure my life in books, not coffee spoons. I can open a book and know exactly how I was feeling then. Each time I do a shoot, it’s a physical record of the work and the time.”
For Cooney, the future is open and easy. “I think there’s a path I’m on and it’s going to lead to all sorts of amazing experiences, because my work and my life are sort of enmeshed. One feeds into the other. I would love to write a book or a screenplay.”
Cooney’s work is a platform for sharing her narrative, and that narrative is told through styling.
“I’m constantly hungry for more experience. Even just knowing what something smells like or what an iceberg looks like; to know that the Rocky Mountains change colour 10 times a day.”
“I want to translate it all into a language that everyone can understand.”
