When Irish stylist and consultant Róisín Kelly gave up a lucrative career in London working in fashion to return to Ireland, it was because she was “sick of the rat race and needed a change”. Based in Bettystown in Co Meath, the Dubliner has exchanged the city jungle for mountains and sea. “I am on the beach every day and just love being back,” she says.
Now working as a freelance stylist and sustainability advocate, having successfully helped to raise funds for an Irish fashion start-up, she is one of the creative forces behind this all-female team shoot taken on Tramore Beach in Co Donegal.
The clothes are from young Irish designers fresh out of college from Dublin, Letterkenny and Belfast, a few of whom are taking part in a show next Friday at the Marker Hotel as part of Ireland Fashion Week.
A kindred spirit, London-born photographer Chloe Aillud, who is based in a cottage in Mountcharles, Co Donegal, after years wandering around Europe, contacted Kelly and, equally tired of city life, suggested working together. These pictures are the result of that collaboration, taken on a day encompassing all four seasons on the rugged wild Atlantic coast.
READ MORE
“It’s a visual journey celebrating emerging Irish fashion design graduates from around the country. Graduates are at a shifting point in their lives, and I wanted the styling to reflect this change, this transition in life,” Kelly says.
The graduates are Tadhg James from the National College of Art and Design (who interned with Róisín Pierce) with pieces from his collection Gender Trouble. Its warped silhouettes and deliberately incorrect pattern placements are designed to convey emotions of body dysmorphia. The jewellery of another NCAD graduate Monika Moryc is designed to be a wearable tool for people with anxiety.
Hollie Marie Gallagher’s collection Extended Boundaries in Magee tweed celebrates her family’s long connection to weaving.
She’s a Letterkenny Atlantic Technological University graduate, as well as being on the national karate team. The collection of Anna Ní Mháirtín, another ATU graduate, is a response to the need for change in a dystopian world.
In NCAD’s Ellie Moloney’s intricate work, pleating and pintucking have a strong craft base. Anna Finnis from Derry, studying at Ulster University Belfast, uses deadstock materials, and NCAD’s Amy Frankie Moroney’s conceptual approach in Sunken Remnants, using wood and latex, is designed to provoke and question.
Such creativity, idealism and youthful attitudes to fashion and what it can communicate is remarkable from those emerging from Irish creative institutions.
[ From scalp to skin: new autumn beauty launches from Irish brandsOpens in new window ]
“They have a raw edge and they throw a spotlight on Ireland and get no financial support in this country. There is so much talent, and use of textiles, and yet Ireland is not in the main frame [of the industry],” Kelly says. “This shoot shows not only their creativity but also the landscape against which they are displayed.”
Photography and creative direction: Chloe Aillud; styling: Róisín Kelly; model: Mary Doherty with NotAnotherInt Agency; make-up: Michelle Anderson; hair: Carla Ni Flanniagh; styling assistant: Hollie Marie Gallagher.
Forty designers will show one look each at The Irish Sea Show at the Marker in Dublin on Friday, October 10th, as part of Ireland Fashion Week.
