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What does a Designer do?

Fashioned Fashion [Newspaper Interview] What does a designer do? Whenever I’m asked that question I say: “A designer makes real the dream.” Whether it’s your dream wedding or your dream party dress, it’ll always be those landmark occasions in your life, your selfie moments in other words.   With party season upon us, how fast can you realise a dream? Well, let me tell you about Jane. You see, Jane was in a panic, it was two weeks to the Christmas do, she wanted to make an impact, but everything in the shops looked like a Mrs. Brown cast off. Yes, it was Christmas, but Jane was in her late twenties and wasn’t about to settle for the Widow Twankey look just yet. So I set to work, I messaged her a design, ping - she loved it. It was young - the back was out - it was everything she dreamed of, but couldn’t actually find in the shops. Two fittings later and she was the belle of the ball, she Instragramed her OMG and the likes poured in.   How do we contact you
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Recent posts

Anyone for Dressage?

 
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The Haunting of Mainham

 The haunting of Mainham
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Summer Time

  Just a simple summer dress ––for an Irish summer that is.
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Foundation Fashion Award 2001

FOUNDATION FASHION AWARD 2001 20 years ago today I won the Foundation Fashion Award. It was created to help designers get a leg up in the fashion industry. The theme was a poem by Patrick Kavanagh:   An d over that potato-field A lazy veil of woven sun, Dandelions growing on headlands, showing   Their unloved hearts to everyone. It was judged by Peter O’Brien who said: “The winner is the person who most thought about every aspect of the design process: from the labels, to how they presented the poem to the judges, to accessories they used on the catwalk...”   With the proceeds I set up “Joanna London” and in case you were wondering ––yes, I was extremely happy to have won...      
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The Fairy Dress

  T he Fairy Dress O NCE UPON A TIME… Well ––actually twenty years ago to be precise, there was a fair Maiden who longed to be a designer of dresses. However the Maiden lived in a land which shunned the wearing of clothes ––that’s right, they were all nudists. Now ––our fair Maiden here was of the opinion that being dressed was the better option, much better, that is, than going about ones business with ––well, with ones business flapping about like some kind of ghastly flag signalling nothing more to the receiver other than: “That’s right I have put on weight ––and yes, most of it is in an inappropriate place.” An opinion, I might add, which was received with derision by the entire populace of the land: “How dare she demand of us that which God Himself has never demanded of any of His creatures which walk His green Earth.” An argument our Maiden thought to preposterous, as she retorted: “Yes ––but where any of them are cold, He hath provided fur ––where any wet, He hath provided scale
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Going Punk

 Some days a girl has just gotta go Punk...
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Women of the Revolution - 1921

WOMEN OF THE REVOLUTION We only just unearthed these photos of, what some suspect be, Eileen O’Dee ––the feminist revolutionary who singlehandedly fought off 12 brigades of the Black-N-Tans during the War of Independence of 1921. We think they were taken just days after she had allegedly escaped to New York ––she fled there as there was a price upon her head: “£100 will be paid by the Crown to anyone who has information which leads to the arrest of one Eileen O’Dee (25), wanted for treason, arson, and for being a general menace to the Forces of the Empire”, was writ large on every poster posted around the Dublin docks about which she had to navigate in order to board the ship which, it is said, would have been her final bid for freedom and escape of the noose which was awaiting her at Dublin Castle. It was said that agents of the Crown were stationed at the New York docks waiting for her to disembark when the ship reached there on the 27th of November 1921 ––but when the ship finally
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