Joanna London Fashion

 

 The haunting of Mainham

  Just a simple summer dress ––for an Irish summer that is.

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...      

  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 s...

 Some days a girl has just gotta go Punk...

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 ...

White Rabbit, White Rabbit I took inspiration for today’s shoot from the folkloric traditions associated with “An Coinín Bán”, or the White Rabbit ––later known as the Easter Bunny. In Irish folklore the Coinín Bán is a púca, or a spirit, which can transform itself into many different forms; a wild horse, a goat, or even a hungry hound prowling a herd of sheep in the dark of night ––some say, that if such a hound is seen in the night after it has slain a sheep, that the witness never witnesses it as a hound any longer, rather it returns to its púca form, a hag with long streaming white hair ––the spirit of hunger herself, who is intent on bringing hunger to the land in revenge for her banishment beneath the mounds by the Goddess of spring: Easter . The story goes ––in the way-back-when Ireland was a bountiful place, green, lush ––a land of Forever-Spring presided over by the Goddess of bounty and full bellies: Easter.   Now ––Easter had a sister called Winter and she presided over ...

Grace O’Malley: Celtic Warrior I took inspiration for today’s shoot from the “Celtic Warrior” Grace O’Malley. Born in 1530, she became quite the thorn in the side of British Crown when she began pirating ships near her home, on the West coast of Ireland, bringing bounty back from the New World. O’Malley had so frustrated Elizabeth I’s expansion into the Western ports of Ireland that Virgin Queen had members of O’Malley’s family kidnapped in an attempt to broker a deal where-by O’Malley would leave the seas about her home to the sole authority of the Crown in exchange for their liberty. At the ripe old age of 63, in 1593, O’Malley met Miss Lizzy One in person and demanded the return of her family members ––in exchanged, she promised she would not stab Skinny Lizzy to death with a dagger she smuggled into the meeting ––however, it was sneaky old Lizzy herself who would stab the amazing Grace in the back: for from that meeting on she began a bloody campaign to take the West of Ireland...

The Woman in White from The Irish Times: 1888 When most are asked: “what is the most terrifying thing that one can confront on one our dark country roads in the early hours of light?” they’ll probably come back at you with some sort phantom or ghoul conjured from their own nightmares ––I, on the other hand, come back at them with a true story about the most terrifying thing my own good friend Pat McGill confronted on the dark road between Bodenstown and Clane in the early hours of a Winter’s morning in 1872, and it was ––a premonition of his own early death. You see ––the road there, between Bodenstown and Clane, is covered over by a canopy atop tall trees and the road itself snakes it way down to the banks of the Liffey like a dark tunnel bored through some Alpine mountain pass ––only in this case it’s constructed out of this arboured mass of familiar vegetation, which is made somehow uncanny by their resemblance to a spectral guard of honour eyeing this road’s users with a harsh ...

Daisy Feels Three Bags Full 1. Shearing my happiness 2. Ba Ba flat feet  3. My soul is woollen 4. It’s all about ewe 5. A night on the lamb  6. A gambling we do go 7. Knit me an apology 8. Don’t call me sheepish 9. (Bonus Track) My Cardigan’s got holes    

  J is for  Jersey Jersey is a woven fabric mixed with lycra, or elastic, to give it an extra stretch. It’s the kind of fabric some designers choose for its “pliable coverage” and flexibility ––it’s especially forgiving to those for whom the qualities of pliability and flexibility extend not only to the fabric of their clothing but also to the proclivities of their lifestyles, after all you’ll never hear the following demand being made by any of the ‘jersey brigade’ ––“Excuse me Madam, would you have any starch in stock for my all-day onesie?”