Joey Germaine | Staff Writer
The Annual National College of Art and Design (NCAD) fashion show this past Wednesday rightly asserted the college’s fashion design stronghold on a global level, as the young designers of Ireland made appearance. The crowd was immersed in the innovation of Irish fashion as this year’s 15 NCAD graduates took to the Grafton Suite of the Westbury Hotel to showcase their collections.
The 15 collections contained both conceptual and ready-to-wear garments, and explored a diverse range of materials while also experimenting with the construction of form and structure.
This year’s fashion show saw the Brown Thomas “Designer to Watch” bursary and mentorship programme presented to one student by Brown Thomas fashion director Shelly Corkery. The selected recipient for this year’s bursary was the exceptionally talented Daniel Roden, who had previously interned for Philip Treacy. His collection delved into tonality and texture while staying within the confines of the colour green, this investigation into the apprehensive nature surrounding the use of colour in haute couture collections displays Roden’s genius and willingness to push boundaries. The form of Daniel Roden’s collection was exquisite as he tested both fitted and oversized silhouettes. Among Roden’s more prominent pieces was a billowing silk coat covered in dark jungle-green feathers, which Roden had applied completely by hand. Rhoden’s impressive collection will be on display in Brown Thomas this July.
Another designer who displayed remarkable craftsmanship was Lorraine Ho whose Louise Bourgeois inspired, “Woven Identity”, collection contained new visionary shapes, which she developed through the deconstruction of her own personal garments. While creating this collection, Ho felt it important to make everything herself. The gloves which feature in her collection are made entirely by hand, to do this she had to research various types of gloves and proceed to draft numerous glove patterns, each glove present in her collection is entirely hand-sewn. The sharp necklines present throughout Ho’s collection, made for a beautiful contrast to the loosely tailored aspect of her garments, some of which featured flowing capes.
Ho’s employment of the powerful and vivid image of the hand, as a symbol of identity – through her use of various gloves – gave her futuristic and conceptual designs a touch of traditional elegance. This aspect gave a sense of familiarity to the almost mysterious silhouettes. The presence of the glove as well as the high neck on some articles allowed Ho to choose what was seen and what was hidden. Saying that her collection is about “exposing and concealing”, she details how she has deliberately left seams exposed and included exaggerated seam lines. To create the intricate structure demonstrated in Ho’s collection, she machine knitted fine copper wire. “The wire holds it’s shape when knitted and had a cage like quality whilst still remaining delicate and transparent”, she said.
Both Jessica Bagnall and Adam Henderson received special recognition for their collections from Shelly Corkery, and have been selected to showcase at Create 2015. Henderson’s collection “Made In The Irish Free State” encapsulates the refined nature of the military uniform of the “Cumann na Mban”. Henderson takes the warfare attire and adds Irish mourning lace to alleviate the sharp masculine undertone of the original uniform.
Jessica Bagnall’s collection, on the other hand, consisted of sharply tailored trouser suits, arched oversized coats and elegantly proportioned dresses. Bagnall’s attention to detail adds a seamless element to her pieces, making them easily passable for commercially ready garments. The beautifully simplistic cut of Bagnall’s designs, give her collection a sense of fluidity.
All 15 graduates featured in the Annual NCAD Fashion Show presented completely unique collections. Structure and texture were by far the highlights of the majority of the young designers’ collections, showcasing the extent of innovation and creativity in the NCAD fashion and design graduating class of 2015. It is hard to look towards the future of Irish fashion design and not feel extremely optimistic and excited after this year’s show.
