Lace has a rich place in Irish history, its craft foundations going back to the 18th century. It was made for the rich by the poor and saved many families from starvation and destitution in the post-Famine period. As a fabric, crochet lace does wonders for the skin. Its delicacy and intricacy make it the most feminine of all fabrics. Lace conceals and reveals but it can also carry deeper and darker stories.
That’s something that Róisín Pierce knows well. In her remarkable career, the 30-year-old Dublin-born designer has used her celebration of crochet and lace to communicate darker stories.
Her first award-winning collection, Mná i bhláth (Women in Bloom), with its lush embroideries and hand smocking, referenced bridal, baptismal and communion dresses made in the Magdalene laundries.
She followed it up with Beware Beware, a material response to Sylvia Plath’s Lady Lazarus, the poet’s searing examination of death and rebirth, with a collection embellished with deadstock bows, bridal veils, ruffles and flowers. Pierce called it “a hyper feminine expression of women’s liberation”.
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Pierce’s latest, equally poetic, collection was shown with great style in the gilded salons of the Irish Embassy in Paris during Paris Fashion Week. Entitled O Lovely One, Girl that Fell from a Star, it consisted of 21 ensembles, each one Pierce’s interpretation of the clothes she imagined an angel might wear. She featured all white except for a quatrefoil playsuit in inky blue Italian cotton. Styling was by Ellie Grace Cumming.
Models were adorned in embroidered tulle and fine crochet lattice tops, in lushly worked “sweet wrapper” dresses, with trailing hems and delicate back straps, or with ruched and gathered skirts and free-floating ribbons. Handwork was multilayered with fused smocking and crochet, and strips of organza manipulated into petal flowers, creating sinuous and sensuous sculptural silhouettes. Each piece from front to back was designed to be interchangeable. “It’s a whole 360-degree sculpture,” Pierce explained.
The overall effect was ethereal and romantic, but grounded with fabrics that included deadstock cotton, organza sourced from the UK, recycled satin, St Gallen embroidery, fine pleated georgette, fine blue cotton and Irish crochet lace.
The poem that inspired the collection was written by Pierce with Michelle Freya, and draws inspiration from Dora Sigerson Shorter’s elegy The Star, a call for peace written in memory of Patrick Pearse. “The poem and collection deal with the sorrow of conflict which darkens the mercurial place we have inherited,” Pierce said in show notes.
Storytelling and craft are in the family DNA. Her grandfather Francis Doyle wrote short stories and her mother Angie, an artist and singer who works closely with her and who taught her crochet skills, was responsible for recognising and encouraging Pierce’s creativity growing up.
The designer has now received the endorsement of Comme des Garcons, the luxury fashion house founded by Rei Kawakubo, which has taken her under their wing in its brand development programme at Dover Street Market in Paris. “She brings a delightful twist to tradition and craftsmanship, infusing her designs with poetic charm,” said Comme des Garçons president Adrian Joffe.
For Pierce, it’s a key moment in her progression. “With their understanding of the development of the brand, this is really exciting,” she said. “We take things slowly, so it can be difficult to scale up. There are 60 pieces in this collection and each one creates something new because there is so much variation in construction and technique.” She is now working and thinking about the next collection.
