Trinity Fashion Society is holding its annual charity Fashion show on Thursday, February 1 in the Douglas Hyde Gallery. Entitled ‘Love’s Young Dream’ the show promises to showcase a fresh and exciting approach to contemporary youth engagement with nationalism and romance. Along with an afterparty in Chelsea Drugstore, the night is set to be incredible. I spoke with Heather Moore, the Chair of Trinity Fashion Society about her thoughts on this year’s show, as well as one of the head stylists, Fergal O Baoill about his personal vision.

 

How’re you? Describe your involvement with the fashion show and how you became interested in fashion.

 

[Heather]: Hey! I’m good, very very stressed! The show is in less than 48 hours! So I’m Heather – I’m the Chair and also one of the Head Stylists along with Fergal O Baoill and Lika Arevadze! I have no idea how I became interested in fashion, I just always knew what I did or didn’t like clothes-wise, and I really care about what I am wearing and what everyone else is wearing. I really couldn’t give you a proper answer! I just love clothes.

 

What is the inspiration for this year’s show?

 

[Fergal]: Sort of randomly, I had been thinking a bit and talking to some friends about what sort of place nationalism has in the lives of young people today, how we can relate to some of the grand romantic sentiments of Irish poets and heroes. So I started reading into some more romantic poetry and this one poem by Thomas Moore from the late eighteenth century struck me because of how it praises the optimism of youth in its idealism but at the same time is so aware of its naïveté and an impossibility of maintaining it. And that’s where ‘Love’s Young Dream’ came from.

 

Describe what you feel is important to today’s youth and the impact youth has on our culture.

 

[Fergal]: Although I can’t describe what’s important for all young people, the huge multiplicity of interests of youth social engagement, that I can’t personally capture, are representative,of the impact that young people have on our culture… there’s more pressure than ever to be socially tuned in and there is no excuse not to be really. With a huge portion of media content marketed towards us, we’re in an interesting position of being simultaneously both the generation that is most highly influenced by advertising, the media, typical social structures etc, and potentially also the most self-aware and capable of deconstructing those structures.

I think it’s quite a powerful generation of youth to be a part of and that’s really exciting!

 

What is the vision for this year’s styling?

 

[Heather]: This year’s styling has many visions. There will be six sections with different styles, all tying in with the theme. As Fergal has said himself, the allusions themselves will probably be quite subtle. Although I think it’s important to note that this theme was the backdrop to the majority of our stylistic decisions. Hopefully people will find that the overall story of the looks presented is based on our contemporary relationship to a national culture that is centuries in the making and is really special and unique.

 

What do you hope to achieve with this year’s show?

 

[Heather]: This year we are hoping to firstly raise a lot of money for an amazing cause — Dublin Simon Community! And secondly, we really want to up our game. We don’t want people to look at this as a silly college thing. We want people to see that for us, this is pretty professional. Anything that costs thousands of euro deserves to be viewed as professional. Some people want to make events like this their life’s work, and a lot of people involved, including myself, have put hundreds and hundreds of hours into perfecting it. I am so concerned and obsessed with this going well that I have been having nightmares about this show for weeks. I want every person that’s involved with this to get the credit they deserve because we’ve all worked so hard!

 

What’s next for Trinity Fashion Society?

[Heather]: What’s next? A big sleep! But also — We have an event with Trinity Arts Festival on February 7 about the future of fashion that we’re excited about! Then on the 16th there’s our big trip to LFW, really excited for that! In the next few months we’re working with Amnesty on Trinity’s Next Top Model. No rest for the wicked, or at least for Fashion Soc!