Fashion

A Cut Above The Rest

Taking place on May 25th in Newman House on St Stephen’s Green, the NCAD’s Annual Fashion Show offers the public an opportunity to glimpse the creations of graduating designers as they emerge from behind the doors of Ireland’s leading design institution. Taken by up-and-coming photographer Andrew Nuding, below you will find a series of images displaying what you can expect from each of the ten designers as well as a profile of each one. Tickets for the fashion show can be purchased here.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Designer:  Ailis Mara

Age:  22

Hometown:  Dublin 

Fashion passions and inspirations: I am inspired by art, photography, sculptural designs/geometrical shapes and have a strong interest in menswear and fashion for film.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Designer:  Clare Lynam

Age:  22

Hometown:  Ratoath, Meath

Fashion passions and inspirations: My love of fashion developed from a great interest in illustration as a child. I started to combine a variety of different techniques, trying out many different styles to in essence recreate styles I became aware of. While architecture and nature have been a constant staple in my folders of inspiration, my love of science, technology and engineering have become the most recent love affair.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Designer: Jennifer Belton

Hometown: Ashbourne, Co. Meath

Fashion passions and inspirations: Architecture and product design really inspire me, especially ideas of connection, construction methods and production techniques. I’m drawn to ideas about enclosing and sheltering and the forms that this can take. Issey Miyake is one of my favourite designers, for his innovative use of materials and techniques. I am interested in designing clothes that offer more to the consumer, that are multi-functional, transformable and surprising. The above is from my Autumn/Winter collection which focusses on outerwear composed of elements that can be separated, flattened, folded or deconstructed in such a way that the garments can be packed away, transported or stored efficiently.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Designer: Jocelyn Murray Boyne

Age: 22

Hometown: Monkstown, Co. Dublin

Fashion passions and inspirations: In my work I am primarily inspired by colour and texture. I am drawn to sources that are rich in these elements. Often a particular fabric will spark my research and ideas for a project. I love to use sources that seem to contradict each other in terms of colour, texture and shape. For my current graduate collection I look at the fragility of nature in the face of mankind’s interference using extremely delicate fabrics to create oversized, utilitarian silhouettes.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Designer: Laura-May Hegarty

Hometown: Dublin

Fashion passions and inspirations: Knitting is my preferred area to work in, especially hand knitting with very large needles and massive wools and yarns. I also love colour and texture, so bright knits with lots of volume. I interned for knitwear designer Tomoko Yamanaka for her label Cabinet in 2012. Her production team is very small and it’s like a little family. I came away from it knowing so much more about knitting and about running a small and successful label. In the future I would love to try and start a small independent label myself focusing primarily on knitwear.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Designer: Leanne Keogh

Age: 22 

Hometown: Bray, Co. Wicklow

Fashion passions and inspirations: I really admire the work and aesthetic of designers such as Jill Sander, Phillip Lim, Celine and Chloe. I love pared-back minimalism with soft structure and understated femininity. I pull my inspiration from a wide variety of sources, be it Japanese architecture, fine artists or photography. My graduate collection was inspired by the Minimalist movement alongside an interest in the flat form of vintage pattern blocks, This fascination was awakened in me by artist Hormazd Narielwalla’s collages in which he uses bespoke tailoring patterns of deceased Savile Row customers.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Designer: Mary Fitzpatrick

Age: 23

Hometown: Maudabawn, Co.Cavan

Fashion passions and inspirations: I am interested in how material is sewn, draped, pulled or forced together to create a garment. I try to create interesting patterns that have unexpected details. I like interesting closures, openings and fastenings in the design. The inspiration behind these details can be very broadd and varied, from industrial farm equipment to a church’s arched ceiling. What is also very important to me is that, in the end, the garment is not difficult to wear, it is easily dressed and comfortable.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Designer: Olwyn Kelly

Hometown: Dublin

Fashion passions and inspirations: I am inspired by modern menswear and am interested in accessories such as bags and how they interact with a garment. I admire menswear designer J.W Anderson, particularly the quirky silhouettes from his Autumn/Winter ’12 menswear collection and the simple, refined silhouettes in his Spring/Summer ’13 collection. The Swedish brand COS has inspired me in terms of cut and construction elements. I admire their minimal, clean designs, along with clever, tactile fabric choices and would like to reflect those attributes. I also enjoy the amalgamation of functional sportswear with classical elements of soft tailoring in menswear garments. Proportion and layering is an interest of mine that I like to bring into my design work.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Designer: Polina Yakobson

Fashion passions and inspirations: The collection includes 8 outfits, from ready-to-wear to hand-crafted (costume/stage/exhibition) art pieces, inspired by work of such haute couture designers as Iris Van Herpen, Gareth Pugh and Givenchy. The main concepts of the collection are visual illusion, zooming, movement and the structure of microforms. There are so many micro-objects that human’s eye is not able to catch, along with the everyday visual information that is so common. The idea that drives the collection is the grotesque – zooming into the details of common objects and observing the light performance that gives an illusion of moving objects, deconstruction of forms and a visual effect of three-dimensional perspectives.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Designer: Sinead Onora Kennedy 

Fashion passions and inspirations: Although Sinead’s work in the past has been in an avant garde fashion context, she is currently investigating the prospect of pushing out of this avant garde fashion boundary and into the broader fine art context where the compositions need not be restricted to the confines of “a body” and could be considered as stand alone sculptures in their own right. She makes voluminous garments out of various fabrics that engulf the body, completely mutating the common notion of the human form. She explores the concept of body dissatisfaction through presenting the portrait and varying degrees to which individuality is expressed or confined via clothing. The garments change the body to something contradictory of the “ideal body image” that is portrayed to us through the media. Some of the garments distort the body so much that it is unrecognizable underneath. The artwork explores the disparity between how the mind perceives beauty in ourselves and others. The work explores self perception/identity in a negative sense touching on themes such as anxiety, obesity, distorted body image, and guilt.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Tickets available here

PHOTOGRAPHY: ANDREW NUDING

MODELS: AISLING REDDIN AT MORGAN THE AGENCY AND LUKE HEALY

HAIR: TONI & GUY

MAKE UP: ANNIE AT MAKE UP FOR EVER

SPECIAL THANKS: JENNIFER BELTON

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *