BLOOMS OF WILD JOY
Her first two collections were a tribute to the crafts of her Irish heritage and the history of the Magdalene laundries, institutions where orders of Roman Catholic nuns put “fallen” women and girls to work to run the laundries for a profit. Here, they scrubbed garments and worked with needlepoint, crochet lace, and smocking—traditional techniques that Róisín contorts into new and innovative forms. Her latest collection, Two For Joy, also has an ominous edge. It’s based on the soothsaying nursery rhyme of United Kingdom folklore that predicts outcomes based on the number of magpies spied—birds that in the Western imagination are often associated with bad luck.
But this so-called darkness gives the lightness of Pierce’s garments their edge, a knowing behind their apparent innocence. The sophistication of this inherent duality that imbues the way we live inhabits each of her alabaster, ivory, and chalk creations, which, in the end, are blooms of wild and utter joy.
You use quite a bit of smocking in your pieces. For me, smocking reminds me of the sundresses I wore as a child; it has this innocence to it for me. Yet when I was looking at the origins of smocking, which has been practised since the Middle Ages, it was often on garments worn by labourers, which I guess is why it’s used in children’s clothes, because it’s cute but durable. How did you come to using smocking in your work, and what association does it have for you?
For me, it adds a layer of complexity and has the ability to transform the fabric to a new dimension. I first introduced smocking with my first collection, Mná I Bhláth (Women in Bloom). The collection was informed by researching the Magdalene laundries. Smocking was one of the techniques [the women in the laundries] created clothing with. It wasn’t well documented, purposely, but through research there’s some information on crochet laces being made, embroidery work, whitework, and smocking for the communion dresses and baptismal dresses.
The collection was never supposed to be a historical recreation but took inspiration from the techniques and the narrative, challenging and creating them in an innovative way to form surfaces and textile explorations. I just love the technique and how it can change a flat fabric to a very three-dimensional surface, and I find its potential is just never-ending. It’s not just smocking that you have put your hand to in new ways but crochet lace and frill as well.
How do you come to play with these? Is it based on the texture and physicality of the material first, or is it more a play on the traditional uses of these materials?
It’s definitely textural. It’s looking at the craft and then going off on many different tangents of challenging it. A lot of my time is spent sampling, and a lot of the time the samples—one section of it or full panel—will become the final piece. When I’m sampling, what has me the most excited is when I feel like I’ve achieved something new—building up three-dimensional surfaces, and this search for the unknown. It’s all very organic.
Sometimes when I feel a sample has enough potential, I will bring it to the stand, and from there start to form together and decide on a more finalised direction. A sleeve may develop from a different sample or multiples with a different application or idea that was developed weeks or months previously. I love working this way. It’s only fully finished [once] the last stitch is put in.
Do you manipulate the fabrics directly onto a mannequin, or do you do experiment with them in flat lay?
Flat at first, but sometimes I bring it over, prematurely, onto the stand, and then from there I may add in more surface manipulation or see how it could get more interesting if it were to become a top or if it were to be created in many multiples. I actually only realised recently how strangely I worked when I was talking to a fashion curator who was intrigued as to how I go about designing. Funnily enough, he was shocked to hear that I work in such an organic way; he hadn’t heard anything like it! Everything is all very organic; there is no finished design in mind. It’s all process-and fabric manipulation-led, and drapery enhanced.
For example, for my latest collection, Two For Joy, I was working with satin, which was starker, and that really took up smocking nicely. But for the first two collections, I was working with broderie anglaise as the main fabric, and when you smock onto that, because there’s already stitches, it’s actually quite hard to see what’s going on. The anglaise was great, though, as it adds another beautiful layer, creating these bubble surfaces into these beautiful cotton flower embroideries. It’s like decoration on decoration, intricate surface information all over.
So, in a way you use the same technique each season but play with the different materials that you use the technique with?
The smocking is the main technique; however, I do combine it with various other techniques and crafts. I love to implement it in new ways that haven’t been done before with each season. I also like to combine it with experimental zero-waste cutting and construction. It is great as it creates little to no waste and allows for more exploration and new ways of forming textiles through its limitation.
Some pieces are more draped, working into one complete piece of fabric, and then others are made with over a hundred squares that I form in alternating fabric patterns, overlaying some with embroidery, some not, and smocking into that or various places to create different surfaces. My favourite and main exploration is smocking. Aside from smocking, there are other three-dimensional techniques at play: heat-treated textiles, pintucks, pleats combined with smocking, crochet within the smocking, and ruffles, of course.
How did you come to this technique, and how and why were you attracted to these materials?
I can see through my years in college and even before then, I was always trying to get this visual language of what the pieces are now. I feel visually it’s what I’ve been trying to say for a very long time. It’s really nice that I feel like I’m there. Now I’m designing the next collection, I’m looking at the smocking in a new way, and I feel that I’m able to think of a new thought process and show it in a new way, even though it’s the same technique. I feel I’ve found my expression, but I’m still able to challenge it and do something fresh and new with it, otherwise I probably wouldn’t be so interested in it.
That’s why I felt like I could have my own brand and be my own designer, because I always felt that I did have a lot in me to design and say. What’s really fun about the garments is that in the past two collections I’ve been doing separates. That gives you so many different shapes and fabric combinations with the same techniques but with different variances, so they usually style really well together, and [this] leads to many more interesting silhouette options. Sometimes when I lend them out to stylists, the way they work them together can show them in a new way, which is nice to see.
There’s also this layering element that I continually explore; I call them “overthrows.” I don’t really like exposing the skin too much, because sometimes it can be a bit too sexy. But layering them on top of these already textured garments creates a texture on a texture which you wouldn’t be able to create without layering it, so it adds a whole lot of depth. I like that it’s also a bit confusing to someone, that they wouldn’t know what it is or how I did that. It’s like collaging with surfaces!
That’s exactly the feeling that I get when I look at some of your creations—I wonder ‘How does she create that?’ And I love this idea of layering textures upon textures, because I feel that it relates thematically to your first two collections based on the Magdalene laundries, which evokes this history, but then also overlaying it with what was going on in Ireland at the time with the 2018 referendum on women’s rights to legal abortion.
That just naturally over-linked, and it was funny, because as I was saying, it was quite hard to find information on the laundries when I started researching and thinking of designing the collection. Now you hear about it on the news daily as more information comes forward. For me, the collection inspiration went hand in hand with the abortion referendum that was going on at the time, and I found the debate [about that] related to the Magdalene laundries, with women’s rights being failed in Ireland. It has changed; we did get the referendum.
I think one of the reasons why your garments speak to me is that they evoke—and you draw inspiration from—baptismal, bridal, and communion dresses. And one of the first dresses I ever coveted as a child was a First Holy Communion dress, going to a Catholic primary school and not being baptised and watching all the girls around me getting these beautiful dresses. What draws you to these dresses of ritual?
It represents the significance the Catholic church had here and the importance of the ceremonial dress, whilst also on an aesthetic level I visually like them. In the laundries, they would have used a lot of techniques that I was examining. My references to the Irish ceremonious dress were my family’s Holy Communion and baptism photos, my cousin’s communion dresses and matching crochet cardigans, as well as garments my mother made for me and my sister. There are such strong traditions of craft that are handed down.
Were these crafts handed down to you?
Yes, my mother is a very talented crocheter—along with everything else! Ireland has some exceptional traditional crafts, but one of my favourites is Irish crochet lace, Clones lace especially. I wanted to do a reviving Irish crochet project away from the collection, just focusing on Clones, but it was planned with older craftspeople just before the pandemic, which sadly postponed the project. However, this time [delay] has allowed for a better concept, as it is about a revival of the craft. I am now working on an initiative which teaches young people in Dublin [how to do] Irish crochet, so that the craft and past heritage is left with a younger generation, to live on.
Are these crafts and techniques dying out a little bit?
I think so. I struggle to find people who currently practise it. I think it’s really sad that it is now mostly outsourced. Irish crochet is extremely labour intensive and is highly skilled. As I said, I like to work with Clones crochet lace. This beautiful lace was born from such sadness. This whole new form of lace originated from the famine times, through desperation. Irish lace makers found they could mimic a highly intricate and desirable Italian lace through the use of crochet hooks and create similar-looking stitches but with considerably less time. They set up lace schools and taught [people in] surrounding towns, which was a much needed source of income.
You only work in white to show the intricacy and detail of your pieces, and I’m glad that people can see how much work goes into each stitch.
What’s funny is that I actually got frustrated with the white whilst designing this season! And I saw people with all these beautiful prints, and I thought the images [of my work] weren’t showing the intricacies of the embroidery. So then I overlayed some of the fabrics against black, and as the overlay was ivory it became quite a beautiful muted grey, and it picked up on the contrasting ivory embroidery. I didn’t actually release it because I wasn’t sure if I wanted to show anyone that I did that yet, because I do feel like I will touch on black. I have a whole way of how I want to go about it, so I felt that these pieces may interrupt that.
Has the meaning of white changed for you as you’ve been working with it, or was there always a non-traditional meaning behind white for you?
I still like the purity references to wearing all white. In Ireland, you usually wear all white for the three religious ceremonious days, and it’s synonymous with youth and innocence. This season, I’ve been working with ivory in a high-shine satin, and it’s conceptually but also visually a lot brighter. I looked back at these memories that I had as a child, these previous memories of exploring and creating that in my head have a lot of beautiful light and shine. This collection was really about designing from a new place of happiness, and bringing this ecstatic energy I get when I design to the pieces. This collection was a brighter one for me.
For your second collection, you were also able to work with Maison Michel the milliners, the fabric specialists Maison Paloma, and leatherworkers Atelier Verneuil-en-Halatte. Tell me how you came up with the ideas when working with these houses, because the hats and bags especially were new for you. And how did you see these pieces fitting into the collection, which was aesthetically based on wildflowers?
By the time I designed the second collection, we had won the abortion referendum, so I wanted it to be a bit more celebratory. The surfaces had more fun elements in the fabrication, from bubble heat-treated surfaces to smocked large-bow cotton lace headpieces. Throughout the first and second collection, there were always references to blooms in the embroidery, from the smocking motifs to the ruffles. It was quite sweet, twee, and childlike with the communion dress references, but with the headpiece I liked that she almost became a flower.
The title [of the first collection], Women in Bloom, came from seeing the children of the Magdalenes as these women that were coming of age, or maybe it was the women in the Magdalenes. My second collection, Wild Flowers, explored the warped perception of the “fallen women” at the time, featuring smocked high-slits skirts [and] lightly swirl-smocked bridal tulle strips in semitransparent tops. Sheer organzas and nets came in through an alternative pattern of zero-waste squares— some in embroidery, some in organza and soft bridal tulle. Each square, even offcuts and scraps of fabric, were patchworked into new shapes and textures, [the] fabric manipulated through various ways, and then joined together through unique form-building to create what I like to call soft sculptures. A laborious but entirely sustainable undertaking which can require weeks, if not months, of continuous work.
I collaborated with Maison Michel again on a one-off pod flower hat, created through classic hat-block moulding. It was a very smooth surface for the hat, fully showing the beautiful carvings of the block. It had these spherical petals with bow sprouts popping out. The bag was made in collaboration with Atelier Verneuil-en-Halatte, on a bloom pod bag flower that very much resembled an egg shape. I’ve always been fascinated with egg shapes and have collected antique shaped eggs from a very young age. Many years ago in college, I created a series of egg bags and purses that were like little Russian dolls, each one smaller so that it could fit in the next.
The new egg/pod bag form developed with CHANEL’s Atelier Verneuil-en-Hallette in 2019 was divided into three sections that you could open like a flower blooming.
Two For Joy references the nursery rhyme that portends what will happen depending on how many magpies you see, and I think it’s so fitting, because nursery rhymes, despite being for children, can often be quite sinister almost, and I think it displays this not-so-innocent levity that your clothes have. Tell me why you named it Two For Joy.
There are different recorded variations of the rhyme, but all share the common theme of superstition, fortune/misfortune, whimsically based on how many magpies you can see. It is bad luck to see a single magpie, so you must look for another one nearby! One is for sorrow, two for joy. I grew up with this rhyme in my head. To this day, I am reminded of the rhyme every time I see a magpie, and this brings me back to my early childhood.
The collection is inspired by these nostalgic childhood memories that have a bright and elated energy to them. I wanted to transfer that energy and excitement into creating the clothes for others to experience. One memory was in my mother’s room in Galway, and there was a lot of light coming in, reflecting on some gold jewellery. I was trying to make sculptures out of them... It was the excitement of making them look different! With Two For Joy, I was trying to tap into this excited, experimental mindset and capture the magical moments of creative joy.
That’s almost exactly what you do now with your fabrics.
Yes! The other memory summarises me pretty well also. I had gotten this clay playset as a present during my birthday party, so I was opening it up in front of all of my friends, and I ran up to the attic that my mum had as a painting studio, ignoring all my friends. I didn’t explain to them where I was going, but I was so excited about making, despite the fact no one knew what I was doing. I just wanted to make and play, and I was more than happy being on my own doing so.