Her special birthday exhibition opens this week, and the coming months will bring shows in Seattle, Boston and New York. At 50, Lainey Keogh, Ireland's knitwear queen, is in her prime, writes Deirdre McQuillan
It may be hard to imagine a dress that looks as if it is made from crushed diamonds, but that is the only way to describe a crochet masterpiece with a moonlight sparkle from Lainey Keogh's 50/50 exhibition, opening on Tuesday. It's just one of a number in glittering metallic yarns "enwrought with golden and silver light" which celebrate her 50th birthday and 25 years of pushing forward the frontiers of knitwear fabrication in Ireland.
It isn't only fans such as Elizabeth Taylor who consider her a genius. Keogh, with her magic fingers, was the first to experiment with innovative threads and patterns and elevate a domestic craft into new and imaginative forms from her early days playing around with traditional Aran stitches. Today, she's at a creative peak.
New this season, for example, are enchanting silver and black gold lamé cord dresses, "a new way of looking at gold," she says, alongside felted cashmere frock coats. Some pieces look sexy, some chunky and cuddly, others formal and ceremonial.
"I don't like things to look knitted," comes as a surprising statement as she shows me some felted cashmere that looks like fabric in her airy headquarters in Dublin's Dawson Street. "Fundamentally it is all about fabrication and the medium is knit. And I can have a bit of a gas. I love making beautiful things."
Many of the 50 one-of-a-kind items are not only beautiful but are also bravura technical achievements that have taken weeks to perfect. The other part of the exhibition will be a retrospective of her work with iconic items from past seasons on display.
Well known for her sensuous cobwebby crochets and cashmeres in rich and subtle colours, the new dresses with scoop-neck pinafore shapes come in snake stitch, creating patterns that frame the body. Point de chainette embroidery decorates the cashmeres.
One dress in black gold lamé with rosette detail and silver silk underslips (made by Mairead Whisker) was inspired by the recent Paul Poiret exhibition in New York. Other stitches, such as the pineapple, draw from traditional patterns but in new, modern yarns.
The collection also includes what must be the most luxurious hoodie in the world in grey, anaconda-patterned felted cashmere, and cashmere dresses decorated with embroidered images of foliage or flowers. "It's making something ethnic really glamorous," she says.
For the past seven years Keogh has collaborated with the embroiderer Theresa McAuley, and the abstracted camellia patterns that snake across handsome episcopal purple or magenta coats resulted from a visit to Mount Usher gardens in Wicklow. Other inspirations come from her Buddhist beliefs like a "healing" robe in lapis lazuli cashmere or symbolic dragons stretching out on long cashmere shawls.
This will be a big year in every sense for Keogh, whose reputation has grown exponentially in the US. She is to present a show in a Seattle art gallery in mid-November, followed by another one in the Museum of Fine Art in Boston in December, where she will present a still-life exhibition and give a talk. She is involved in weaving projects in Nepal, and in December is presenting another 50/50 show inspired by the paintings of her friend, Tibetan artist Romeo Shrestha, in Tibet House in New York. She has also been invited by Donna Karan to work with her on her ambitious new Urban Zen wellness centre in Soho in New York.
Home today is a lovely restored stone house in Wicklow originally built for Synge's sister. Country life seems to suit her as she looks healthy and well having recovered from a debilitating illness some years ago. She is also starting to think about the future in positive ways. "I would like to create more affordable pieces and set up a school. I don't want this to die with me. I have researched and resourced millions of euros worth of development and all of it is original. I would love it to be available as a resource and I would love to set up a postgraduate course for students who fabricate from knit or a bursary for a student placement with me. It has always been important for me to show what we can do here in Ireland."
Half of the proceeds from the 50/50 sale, projected to be around €100,000, will be donated to Chernobyl Children's Project and the ISPCC. The exhibition, which opens in Brown Thomas, Dublin next Tuesday, will run for two weeks. Prices from around €1,200 upwards.