The Irish are at the forefront of the Paris fashion industry. Deirdre McQuillanmeets some prominent Hibernians making their mark in the French capital. Photographed in the Irish Embassy in Paris by Alan Betson
MARY SHAW, Boutique owner
Shaw, originally from Co Down, has lived in Paris for 28 years. Married to a French banker, she is a graduate of Trinity College in Dublin. She has also worked in London and New York, including in the press office at Christie's in London. "I have always been involved in the creative side of things," she says. In 1997 she set up Sequana, a showroom that resembles a home environment, creating textures, furniture and ceramics from scratch. With its colourful style, it created a stir at a time when the vogue was for minimalism and the muted shades of designers such as Christian Liagre. "There was worldwide interest in the concept. We re-created it in 31 Neiman Marcus stores all over the US." The showroom is set out like an apartment, which she revamps regularly with new textiles and furniture. She will be exhibiting at the Maison et Objets trade fair in Paris for the first time later this month. Sequana (named after a Celtic goddess and the Latin name for the River Seine) is at 64 Avenue de la Motte Picquet, Paris 75015.
JIM COUGHLAN, Freelance design consultant
Coughlan was formerly design director of Nina Ricci. He left Paris last year for New York and is now doing consultancy work in London. He is from Cork and is a graduate of the National College of Art & Design. Coughlan started his career in Italy, then moved to Paris to work with Christian Lacroix before joining Sonia Rykiel, "becoming her right-hand sidekick for five years". When Lars Nilsson, with whom he had worked at Lacroix, went to Ricci to regenerate the brand, he asked Coughlan to come on board. "Ricci is an amazing masthead. We started from scratch with a small clientele base, with the idea of rejigging the image. Paris has a very particular attitude to clothing, because there is a culture of couture and art and great visual impetus, a culture that makes women confident and proud of being women." He is currently working in London with Sadie Frost, whom he describes as "a modern heroine", helping to reinvent her FrostFrench clothing line, and now divides his time between London and Paris, and chills out in Kerry, where his sister lives.
TINA LIGNELL, press attaché for Christian Dior haute couture and pret-a-porter
Press attache for Christian Dior haute couture and pret-a-porter Lignell, who is originally from Dublin, has been with Dior for six years. A former student of the College of Marketing and Design, she left Ireland to work in a small company in Paris in October 1990. Nine months later she landed a job with Lancel, the luggage company, where she worked for more than three years, learning about sales and boutique management. From there she moved on to manage Et Vous on Rue Royale for nearly three years. A chance meeting with Ungaro's director of communications led to a job heading its PR for Europe. She was headhunted for Dior after a meeting with Galliano and Sydney Toledano. Now married with twins, she loves the quality of life in Paris and has loads of friends, "but I still miss the craic in Ireland - the French just don't get it".
ENDA CLEARY, Commercial manager at Comme des Garçons
Cleary, who has a degree in sociology and social policy from University College Dublin, was encouraged to try his luck in Paris by his sister, Andre Cleary, who lectures in fashion at the National College of Art & Design in Dublin. He comes from a Carlow family with a business background, and a year spent as an Erasmus student in Bordeaux whetted his appetite to work in France. In Paris he was taken on by the Northern Ireland designer Sharon Wauchob for more than three years, and he learned about the commercial side of fashion. He left Wauchob for Martin Margiela; he has been with Comme des Garçons, in its office on Place Vendôme, for 18 months. "I work with a small commercial team and enjoy working with people driven by passion for what they do," he says. Although he misses family and friends in Ireland, he loves living in Paris, particularly for the city's social and cultural aspects.
AISHLING LUDDEN, Design director for Marc Jacobs's womenswear collection
Ludden's graduate collection, at the National College of Art & Design, was "glamour-grunge, and I am still doing it today", says this young designer, who now has one of fashion's highest-profile jobs. A graduate of the Royal College of Art in London as well as NCAD, Ludden worked with Diesel and Max Mara in Italy for almost two years. She was introduced to Jacobs through a friend who was the company's creative director, and has been working with him in Paris and New York for the past six years on research and design direction for womenswear. "It's incredibly stimulating and challenging, and Marc is very inspiring," she says. As a student she worked with Ib Jorgensen and Michael Mortell in Dublin. "The fashion business has exceeded my expectations. I work with the best in the world, and we have the best of everything. But a lot was chance - that's how I got my foot in the door." Ludden misses Dublin but loves living in Paris, which she finds "quite villagey".
GODFREY DEENY, European editor of Fashion Wire Daily
Deeny, a former Clongowes Wood College star debater with an honours degree from Trinity College Dublin in economics and social sciences, is European editor of a news service devoted to fashion, style and celebrities. The son of a Lurgan GP, he has had a career that has taken him from news and financial reporting in Italy to international fashion. He is one of a handful of journalists who report and comment on the global menswear and womenswear collections twice a year, the haute couture shows in Paris, and the business and social aspects of fashion. He is on first-name terms with the magnates of the international fashion business. He is a former Paris bureau chief of Fairchild Publications, publisher of Women's Wear Daily, and has headed various Condé Nast publications. Married to an Alaskan designer, with whom he lives near the Palais Royal, he lectures at Moscow University and travels widely. "Fashion is one of the world's great crossroads," he says. "Everybody wants a part of it. It's a creative nexus."
DARA McMAHON, Market adviser, consumer goods, Enterprise Ireland
McMahon was responsible for organising Enterprise Ireland's recent project promoting Irish fashion in France, Benelux and Scandinavia, which culminated in a catwalk show at the Irish Embassy in Paris last September. McMahon, a Dubliner with a French and English degree from University College Dublin, and a postgraduate qualification from Smurfit Business School, spent his Erasmus year in Lyon, which, he says, "set off a wanderlust that's hard to shake off". Having
worked in the consumer division of Enterprise Ireland in Brussels for three years, he moved to its Paris office in 2002, developing contacts with agents, buyers, designers and retail outlets. He loves Paris, and likes working with people. "And fashion is a good story."
HELEN LAMBERT, CEO of the AGA Group
AGA provides trend reports, sources products "and anything that is new and happening" for gilt-edged clients such as Bergdorf Goodman and Neiman Marcus in the US, Holt Renfrew in Canada, Fenwicks in London and Lane Crawford in Hong Kong. Lambert, who is from a farming family in Nenagh, Co Tipperary,, came to Paris for a year in 1986 and became involved in selling advertising space in magazines and radio, ending up working for Elle and Elle Decor. She had responsibility for their 36 international editions and organised high-profile fashion events. She joined AGA three years ago and bought the company last year. It employs 50 people and, during its busy periods in March and September, looks after some 130 international buyers, organising their appointments, show tickets and transport, and following through on shipping orders. "We had €12 million worth of Christian Louboutin shoes through our office, just going to the States," she says. Lambert is married to a Frenchman and has two children, aged l3 and five. She loves her work, the variety of Parisian life and the fashion industry's continuous evolution. "I never imagined doing anything like this, but I had a lot of luck," she says.
JULIE PEELO and BEATRICE MacCABE, Heads of accessories, jewellery and bags, at Galliano
The two are graduates of the National College of Art & Design: Peelo in textiles, MacCabe in fashion. Their combined backgrounds include experience with John Rocha, trend forecasting in Como and working with Fiorucci. They ended up working together as accessories assistants at Marni, in Milan, for nearly three years. During that time they also launched their own range of jewellery, called Jule, and an exclusive range for Topshop when it opened on St Stephen's Green in Dublin. Headhunted by John Galliano, they moved to Paris a year and a half ago.
PATRICK SCALLON, Director of communications and art director at Martin Margiela
Scallon, who comes from Fermanagh, is a politics and economics graduate of University College Dublin. He moved to Brussels to work at the European Commission and ended up a freelance writer. What started as a three-week stint in 1993 with the Belgian fashion designer Martin Margiela became six months, "and I am still here". The company employed seven people when he joined it; it now has 75 staff, with an annual turnover of €33 million, and is owned by Diesel. Margiela has a high profile in design, and Scallon is involved in setting up museum and art exhibitions, the most recent being last November at Boston Museum of Fine Art. He is currently working on the brand's new shop, due to open in Los Angeles in February. "You become increasingly comfortable in Paris, but I miss the darker side of Dublin. This is a hard industry."
ANN McGOVERN, Fashion and interiors agent
McGovern is a former model who ran the showroom of Stephen Marks, of French Connection, in London for a number of years. McGovern says her fashion career began almost by accident. In 1986 she opened an agency in London, representing and distributing international brands. One of her first clients was Jean Paul Gaultier, beginning a long association and a friendship. Helmut Lang and Alexander McQueen were also clients at the time. Gaultier brought her to Paris in 1998, and she worked with him for two years before branching out on her own. Now she works with a stable of clients, including many prominent Japanese companies, and is moving from fashion into lifestyle areas - a natural progression, as she is passionate about interior design. She loves Paris, and has a wide circle of friends, but keeps a flat in London and is restoring a cottage in Belturbet, in Co Cavan. "I like the anonymity of large cities such as London, but Paris is a lovely city for a woman."
KARL TREACY, Freelance fashion writer
Treacy, who is from Limerick and a graduate of the city's school of art and design, divides his time between Ireland and Paris. He contributes to the International Herald Tribune, which recently published his feature on Irish fashion, and freelances for the Financial Times and magazines such as Tank, Tribe and V Man. He is also a contributing editor to the luxury online publications of Assouline, a French publisher. His interest in fashion, which began at the age of five, was fostered by his stylish older sister Yvonne. He worked for a time in visual display at Brown Thomas, later moving to Paris, where he picked up freelance writing work almost immediately. He lives in a chic area of the city, loves looking at elegant women and adores couture. "For me it is the beginning and the end of everything. When it is good, nothing else can compare."
EMMA LAMOTTE O'CARROLL, Head of buying and product development at Balenciaga
Lamotte O'Carroll, who is employed by the hottest house in fashion, is responsible for all the fabrics for its menswear, womenswear, furs, leathers and accessories. "We design 90 per cent of our own fabrics," she says. O'Carroll, who is from Roscommon, in 1995 won a Fás scholarship to study textile technology in Leicester for five years. She then went to Australia, where she worked as a merchandising manager for Gucci. A job with a weaving company in Paris, designing fabrics for major brands such as Chanel, Prada and Donna Karan, led her to a job as menswear buyer at Le Bon Marché, Paris's premier department store. After freelancing for a time, she joined Balenciaga in 2002. Married to a Frenchman, she has four children, aged from six to 22. She loves Paris for the culture, the fast-moving pace of life and the fashion, but she says she prefers Ireland's less "conformist" way of looking at clothes.
SHARON WAUCHOB, Designer
Sharon Wauchob, Paris's highest-profile Irish designer, is one of the few independents on the the city's official catwalk calendar. Wauchob (who could not make the photo shoot because of work commitments) is also one of a handful of female designers in France, including Isabel Marant and Vanessa Bruno, who have made it on their own. Wauchob, who is from Newtownstewart, in Co Tyrone - her ancestors were Dutch settlers - has lived in Paris for more than 12 years, maintaining an individual style and steadily growing her business internationally, particularly in Japan. A graduate of Central St Martins College of Art and Design, in London, she was headhunted in 1997 by Louis Vuitton as a design consultant. She launched her first collection in 1998. Her future plans include outside collaborations into lifestyle products.