Fashion

Carla Johnson wins fashion designer of the year at Fashion Innovation Awards

Forty-two designers battled it out at last night’s awards, which featured designs including LED-lit headwear and David Bowie-inspired jewellery

Dubliner Carla Johnson aka "MONA SWIMS" who won the Overall Innovation Award at the Irish Fashion Innovation awards in the Radisson Blu Galway. Photo: Andrew Downes, xposure.

Fri Mar 11 2016 - 07:10

Carla Johnson of Mona Swims was named fashion designer of the year at the seventh annual Fashion Innovation Awards at the Radisson Hotel in Galway on Thursday night, attended by more than five hundred people.

Student designer of the year was Colin Burke of NCAD. Dee Mangan of Kinsale Leather won accessory designer of the year. The millinery designer of the year award went to Elaine Keogh, and jewellery designer of the year to Emma Bourke.

A highlight of Galway’s first official fashion week, the event founded by Patricia McCrossan, MD of Golden Egg Productions, and the only platform for young fashion designers in Ireland, showcased the work of 42 designers battling it out for awards in six categories: jewellery, accessories, millinery, student design, ones to watch and designer of year.

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Detail of the statuettes handed out to the winners at the Golden Egg Fashion Innovation Awards

Special guests on the night were designers Mariad Whisker and Heidi Higgins showing their spring-summer collections. According to McCrossan, the standard of student designers fielded from six colleges around Ireland including NCAD, LSAD, University of Ulster, Griffith College, Galway Technical Institute and, for the first time, St Angela’s in Sligo, is getting higher each year in terms of design, concept and quality of finish.

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Flashy design
There were more than 150 entries for the awards which included some spectacular headwear from five milliners including one using LED lighting, jewellery inspired by David Bowie or by the contemporary use of wild plants. Accessories ranged from leather bags to scarves printed with images of urban and rural Irish landscapes.

Three Northern Irish designers featured in the ones-to-watch category – Fintan Mulholland the Belfast-based knitwear designer, who achieved the highest mark on record for his MA in knitwear design in Nottingham, Etain Grant another knitter with colourful Art Deco-inspired separates and Kyree Forrest, a resident designer in the city’s new Fashion and Textile Design Hub.

There were five competitors for Fashion Designer of the Year, the top award: Caroline Mitchell from Limerick, Giovanna Borza from Dublin, Kabira Allain from Wexford, Carla Johnson of Mona in Dublin and Tissue, a new ready to wear label from Hannah Mullan and Grainne Finn.

Tomorrow, a Galway fashion trail takes place featuring special fashion shows in leading stores each including a Galway-based fashion designer as part of the show.