lace | skills
MY LOVE OF LACE
ELEANOR CALNAN Leopon Guild, West Cork I made the veil for my daughter’s communion in 1990, it didn’t take me very long to do because I was up against time. I made her christening dress and communion dress out of my wedding dress too. I am a member of the ICA for 28 years and teaching for 26 of those. I teach about 30 crafts, I’ll be back in An Grianán in July where I will be teaching hand-wick embroidery and I am teaching at the lace convention in September.
Sybil Connolly Doyenne of Design
S
ybil Connolly rose to international stardom in the early 1950s. Her red flannel petticoat and the popular “Irish washerwoman look,” a pleated linen dress was made famous by Jacqueline Kennedy, who wore it when she sat for an official White House portrait. Today, her dresses are harder to come by in auction houses than Dior. Other famous clients included Elizabeth Taylor, Julie Andrews and Merle Oberon. Connolly popularised Irish fabrics like tweed, poplin, lace and linen by softening their colours, textures and construction. Her most famous gowns
IN ASSOCIATION WITH
043 ICA Summer 2015_Lace.indd 45
have incorporated overskirts made of Carrickmacross lace. Sybil had a wonderful sense of colour – she once sent a clematis leaf to a linen mill as a colour reference. Her Pink Ice dress, is made with satin overlaid with Carrickmacross lace that Connolly persuaded the nuns to dye for her! In the 60s fashion changed but Sybil remained true to her own style; she was once quoted saying: “I never liked the mini and I always remember what Dior once said to me in Paris, ‘A woman should show her curves not her joints’ and this was so true”. SUMMER 2015 | ICA HOME & LIVING | 45
15/05/2015 12:48