LVMH Prize Finalist Rà³isàn Pierce is Fashion's Next Big Thing
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Loading... - Bridget Walsh
- 01 Jun 2022
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It’s 4 p.m. in Dublin and Róisín Pierce has a migraine. Yet, the 25-year-old designer pops onto the Zoom screen smiling, her dark red hair framing her face against an all-white backdrop. She’s signing on from her “kitchen-y” home studio space, a smattering of headless mannequins against the back wall. It’s hard to tell, squinting through a small screen, but each is draped in one of the designer’s ethereal, artisanal creations.
Pierce’s clothing has an angelic, otherworldly quality, and not just because she works primarily with white fabric. The shape and texture of each item, as it rests on the body of the wearer, is surprising in its dexterity. Some pieces seem almost as if fresh whipped cream has been laced and drawn in interlocking shapes around the body. Others are heavily smocked, standing stiffly, though still delicately constructed, like crunchy armor.
Her technique—binding together strips and squares of fabric, a process she deems “quite difficult”—was one born out of a desire to produce clothing without waste. Small pieces of fabric build on one other to create a fully fleshed-out garment. “It can just lead to so much exploration in that it’s sustainable, but also not just for sustainability’s sake; it benefits me as a designer,” she notes. Pierce explains that in practice, the fabric may not always rest nicely on the body, but the complexity that comes from the method leads to exploration beyond fashion’s standard silhouettes.
“I have rooms full of samples at this house...old collections I could look at, but I don’t want to because I want to see what I can do without having looked at what I’ve done in the past,” she says, explaining that her innovations of technique often set her imagination running—instead of producing a single piece, she wants to make 10. “It’s quite nice when I see something from the first collection, [and notice a] little something similar in the new collection, but it’s on a whole other construction. There are similarities, but it might only be recognized by me.“
Much of Pierce’s work is tied deeply to her Irish heritage both in production and in inspiration. Mná I Bhláth (Women in Bloom), her first collection, drew from the history of the Women’s movement in Ireland, including the Magdalene Laundries, secret Catholic Church-run institutions in which “fallen” women were confined and forced into labor; and the 2018 repealing of 8th Amendment to the Irish Constitution, which effectively banned women’s rights to safe and legal abortions. Pierce explains that for this collection, her use of smocking and embroidery served as a starting place—“The broderie anglaise; that was very much like a christening gown,” she says. In 2019, Pierce won Chanel’s inaugural Métiers d’art Prize at Hyères Festival for the collection, which also allowed her to collaborate with the French fashion house’s ateliers on an extension of floral items, entitled Bláthanna Fiáin (Wildflowers).
In November 2021, Two For Joy arrived. “[It] was a much brighter collection, about very happy memories I had as a child,” she says. The use of satin, while still sticking to her signature white palette, gave the pieces a “golden, magical tone.” In this collection, Pierce dotted pieces with small cotton flowers, layered against both organza and loose against bare skin. The effect is softer and more at ease than her earlier work.
In her exploration of fabrication, specifically tied to Irish craftways, Pierce has seen an opportunity not only to revisit history, but to also protect her heritage and work. “The craft is dying out,” she explains. “I had a project planned near the north, and a lot of the women that I had planned to work with have actually passed away from the pandemic, so I started an initiative to teach young people to Irish lace. It’s a very small class, but it’s just about keeping it alive...I want younger people to be able to keep carrying it on.
”While many designers eventually give in to the gravitational pull of the fashion world, relocating to hubs like London and Paris, Pierce remains staunchly in Dublin—close to the craftspeople she regularly collaborates with. “It’s a bit strategic on my part because it’s a bit of a breathing space,” she explains. “People are emailing me asking, ‘Can I come over and view the collection?’ I’m like, ‘No, you can’t actually; you’re not getting in,’ which I think is really good for my work because, with my brand, what comes first is the design.” To Pierce, it’s the process in which she wants to be enveloped.
Currently, Pierce is in the midst of designing her fourth collection for her namesake brand and juggling the stresses that come with being launched into the global fashion spotlight. This means doing things a bit “backwards.” In the past, her sources of inspiration, she explains, “would be something I’m researching in my own spare time; I wouldn’t even be thinking like, Oh, collection. It would be something I’d be wanting to learn a bit more about.” While her first collections were made-to-order and created annually, now Pierce is having to navigate scaling up production of technically tricky, highly detailed pieces.
“I used to say that the brand is for the people more so in the art or design world; that’s who would appreciate it.” But the sculptural, textured designs have begun to attract a wider breadth of customers—including major retailers like Nordstrom, perhaps not the typical shopping destination for the art crowd. “[What] I really was proud of with the Nordstrom order is that it wasn’t a watered-down collection,” she says. “What I had shown as part of my final collection was what they bought and what was able to go on the shelves. I was really happy it wasn’t like, Oh, we’ll just do T-shirts.” A highlight for Pierce was when she was sent a photo of her piece in the store. “I didn’t even know it was on the shop floor.” Read More...
