As mentioned in this post, the Textiles and Fashion Design students at St. Angela’s College in Sligo are holding their Graduate Showcase Exhibition tomorrow and I have been lucky enough to get to feature the graduating designers today on the blog. Here is my second interview with the super talented Jade Reidy. I would certainly reccommend that you check out my first interview with her here.
What made you decide to take design as a serious career path?
I love all things art and design based, as a child I loved all the arts and crafts sets I had every kind, this definitely influenced my decision as I grew up and made me realise what area I wanted to Study. I am so glad I choose this root. You get a great sense of achievement from the whole process from initial ideas to looking at a finished piece.
Where does your design inspiration come from?
It can come from many things, I do enjoy making up stories and letting my design development come from this. There are no right or wrong ways to design that is what I love about it. Your inspiration can be as make believe as you like, or can be the complete opposite where you can focus on an object and draw inspiration from it. This is always an exciting stage of the design process.
Since you are just about to graduate, what advice would you have for people thinking of studying art and design? Some tips that you wish someone had told you?
You definitely need to be committed, it does take over your life and you will be in college for long hours each day. You have to be passionate about it. But it is also very exciting. I enjoyed every bit of it. As I said before it does give you a great sense of achievement when you see an idea turn into a finished garment.
Can you please tell us a bit about your graduation showcase collection
I am from Sligo and have always been inspired by my local surroundings, for my graduate collection I felt it was appropriate that I explored in-depth. My Graduate Collection is called “A Textured World of Emotions”. The collection is based around an emotional concept connected to a woodland that is located near where I grew up, Hazelwood.
My colour and texture inspiration have been drawn from this along with the concept of a feeling I want my graduate collection it signify. I focused my design development on digital print and interesting surface qualities. I created digitally printed fabrics from original art pieces using acid dyes on paper adding salt to act as a resist. This created the unusual bleeding design which I then further developed into a mirrored repeat print. I also manipulated some areas of my pieces to add another bit of interest to the whole collection.
This collection was designed with the words comfort, protection, security and memories in mind. I developed a story through my design development of a girl moving away from her home town to an urban civilisation while still having that longing feeling of home and the comforts that came with it. From this I wanted the garments to be a reminder to this person of the feelings she once felt in her special place, I wanted to bring back these feelings again through wearing the clothing, while living her new life away from home. My fabric choices and silhouettes all came from this idea.
What are your plans for the future – is there an area of fashion / design that most interests you?
I would love to work with a high street design company and see how they operate. Visual merchandising is also an area that really interests me. As for the future, who knows it’s exciting but daunting to know what’s going to happen next. But the fashion industry is definitely an exciting place to involve in.
I am really looking forward to seeing Jade’s pieces in person at the Showcase and a huge thank you to Jade for firstly being featured again and secondly for helping arrange the features with the other four graduates. You can follow Jade on her website and also on Twitter, Instagram and she also has an amazing blog!
If you enjoyed this interview in the ‘Floralesque Meets’ Series, then you can click here to read more exciting interviews with designers, creators, artists, photographers, entrepreneurs and more – enjoy meeting the makers!
