Sibling success: Irish roots cited as inspiration by designers

Handcraft worked its way into many collections at London fashion week and two of the designers behind the London label Sibling cited their Irish background as the force behind their autumn-winter collection, which fashioned new takes on the traditional Aran sweater.

Cozette McCreery – whose ancestors hail from Clare Island – and Joe Bates, whose family is from Galway, say the collection evoked Ireland and their shared memories of the 1970s.

“It showcases modern interpretations of hand-knit Arans,” says Ms McCreery, who posed for Lucian Freud’s Irish Woman on a Bed in 2003. That inspired one of the looks, a pixelated version of the piece.

Featuring a mixture of hand and machine work with colours described as Burke green and Clew Bay blue, some items took at least 100 hours each to complete by 10 specialists employed to hand knit, crochet and embroider.
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