Last month, Dublin's Grafton Academy of Dress Designing held a fashion show to mark the institution's 60th anniversary. Among the familiar names - Paul Costelloe, Pat Crowley, Louise Kennedy, Richard Lewis - was the distinctly unfamiliar one of Jacqueline Quinn. At the moment, this may not be a label which has any following in Ireland, but Dublin-born Quinn intends to change that as soon as possible. A Grafton Academy graduate, she has been based in New York since 1995. Prior to her trans-Atlantic move, Quinn had worked with a number of Irish companies including Traffic and Lisa Lovell. "I was frustrated with the lack of money businesses at home paid to designers," she says, which is why she accepted a position in the United States with John Roberts. A company with an annual turnover in the region of $100 million, John Roberts sells to every major American outlet offering a wide variety of merchandise from 1980s-style jumpsuits to matching shifts and coats.
Here, Quinn has been responsible for import designs, looking after all women's clothing coming from south-east Asia and while happy with her job she still wanted an opportunity to produce her own range. So, for the season ahead, she has designed the first Jacqueline Quinn range, six outfits from which were shown as part of the Grafton Academy evening. She describes her clothes as being inspired by films from the 1950s such as High Society, Guys and Dolls and some of Audrey Hepburn's early vehicles. Certain features in the Quinn line have clear period resonances; lusciously full satin skirts with inverted pleats, for example, or astrakhan-style, mid-calf coats. Among the items which have met with the best response with store buyers so far is the combination of a flaring, grey, fused-satin skirt and a ribbed, cowl-neck sweater with clusters of hand-beading.
Quinn has given herself a very restricted palette in which black, silver and gunmetal grey are to the fore. But while dark, the clothes are by no means dull thanks to the designer's use of embroidery and beading; almost every surface has been given some element of decoration. A black velvet Spencer jacket with three-quarter length sleeves (very 1950s, those) is encrusted with a design of trailing black, jet vines while a sleeveless boat-neck top, also in velvet, has beaded fringing around its hem. The imitation astrakhan coat (made again from black velvet) comes with a matching shift dress; another dress, in gunmetal jacquard with a silver twig motif, has three-quarter-length sleeves and stops just below the knee. Also in the collection: a black silk velvet pencil skirt to the knee with beaded lace hem; a black and silver floral design in jacquard with wool chenille used for a boat-necked shift; a long dress of black lace lined in gunmetal satin with grape clusters in jet beads.
"I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel," says Quinn. Instead, she wants to offer clothes which are glamorous, evocative, full of resonances from almost half a century ago while taking full advantage of contemporary technology. This is what characterises her work: while clearly rooted in the past, it acknowledges the present. The 32-piece range - including four hand-embroidered ballgowns - is better suited to evenings than daywear, particularly when accessorised with Quinn's large pieces of costume jewellery. At the moment, she is in the process of getting backing for the collection in the USA and of showing pieces to American department stores, many of which would already be used to working with her through John Roberts. However, like so many other Irish designers who work overseas, she would love to see her clothes selling here and before the Grafton Academy show called to see a few Dublin retailers. Given the booming Irish market - and the wealth of other designers whose clothes are now available in Ireland - surely this should not prove an impossible ambition?
Jacqueline Quinn may be contacted at 001-718-2782179