Pattern

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Orla Kiely is undeniably fashion’s sweetheart with her iconic feminine prints that fit seamlessly across collections from homeware to ready-to-wear season after season, always with a hint of her favourite era, the 1960s. The Irish designer began her career designing hats before creating major waves of innovation with the idea of using laminate cloth for handbags in the late 90s, with her distinctive designs leading her to be described as ‘the Queen of Prints’ as time leads on they have seen her work transferred across kitchen and homeware, clothing, accessories, and even cars. Pattern is not a trend for me, to be taken up one minute and abandoned the next when the winds of fashion change. Pattern is in me. It is my life’ KS1 All About Orla Kiely Fact File - This eye-catching Fact File, aimed at KS1 pupils, is a great resource to use while exploring colour and pattern. It summarises the life and work of the award-winning Irish designer Orla Kiely In the process, Kiely, who started her professional life as a fabric and wallpaper designer in New York, has created an international fashion and retail business with a level of distinctiveness and recognition more normally associated with the world’s most famous brands. The ubiquitous graphic, of course is just one strand of Kiely's textile design. But it is far from her only familiar print: cars, apples and pears, martians, glass tumblers, acorn cups – without even looking, you've almost certainly seen them all, whether printed on furniture in Heals, bedding at John Lewis or toiletries bags in giftshops nationwide – not forgetting fashion, which Kiely is still passionate about (she has just opened a dedicated new shop in the King's Road).

The JSESSIONID cookie is used by New Relic to store a session identifier so that New Relic can monitor session counts for an application. Emling, Shelley (5 June 2009). "A designer's gift for understatement". New York Times . Retrieved 7 February 2022. (subscription required) The exhibition charts the growth and success of Orla Kiely from her first collection of hats at London Fashion Week in 1994, through the advent of the iconic Orla Kiely bag in the mid-nineties to her freelance work for department stores executed from her kitchen table in 1998. Launching her ready-to-wear line in 2003. Orla Kiely produced four collections a year. Each collection contained signature pieces: coats, dresses and knitwear linked through colour and print. Campaigns for the collections were documented by leading photographers such as Venetia Scott, Yelena Yemchuk, Ben Toms and Vivien Sassan. In these the visions of the collection becomes complete. The Orla Kiely look has been described as appealing to confident and stylish women. Among her famous clientele has been Alexa Chung, Kiera Knightley, Kirsten Dunst, Zooey Deschanel, Sarah Jessica Parker, Emma Thompson and Catherine Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge. Each design is developed carefully by drawing and refining the essential organic elements that are the foundations of her instinctively satisfying repeating patterns. Nature – rendered more abstract and graphic – is always a core source of pattern ideas.The Afternoon Show, RTÉ One". RTÉ News. 10 November 2008. Archived from the original on 18 September 2009 . Retrieved 30 November 2009. Beginning with wool felted hats commissioned by Harrods and soon expanding into handbag designs. In 1995 Orla presented accessories at London Fashion Week and had her first buyers from Japan. Whilst working at her kitchen table, freelancing for Marks & Spencer and designers at Debenhams, by 1998 her range had developed to include clothing and was being shipped to Paris, Hong Kong, Tokyo, New York and Dublin. She talks about the way she sees the world as repeat patterns, and you can recognise the repetition in her work instantly, which adds a lot of clarity and means you can read an Orla Kiely design immediately. Once you start looking for it, you see it everywhere.” Kiely’s appeal is certainly international. The designer has devoted fans of various ages, from New York to Tokyo, all of whom consume her goods in different ways. “I have a feeling that there is a core customer who probably started with Orla when they were in their 20s, and they’ll continue with her, but she also has a very broad appeal to younger girls through her fashion,” Nothdruft suggests. Patterned prints from Orla Kiely

Kiely Rowan PLC, the retail and wholesale entity operating the fashion business under Kiely's name, ceased trading on 17 September 2018, but has continued selling through its distribution partners. [1] Biography [ edit ] The business empire, which Kiely runs with her husband, Dermott Rowan, from a small office and two boutiques in London, has not only earned the designer export awards and industry accolades, but she has even been immortalised on an Irish 82-cent stamp, the type most often used for first-class overseas mail. A Life in Pattern by Orla Kiely Even so, people shouldn't be so scared of pattern in the home. "You just have to go for it. That really is the point. Just be brave."She has been awarded the title of Visiting Professor of Textiles at the Royal College of Art and was made a Senior Fellow in 2016. [2] Having presented her first ready-to-wear collection in 2003 using simple, clean silhouettes that allowed the prints to stand out, her clothes have been worn by a vast supply of household names, including Alexa Chung, Kiera Knightly and the Duchess of Cambridge. From influence to impact, the Orla Kiely range at MyBag includes styles from practical tote bags with classic Orla Kiely floral print to cute mini leather handbags and embossed cross body bags taking heed from the many realms of Orla’s iconic career. Orla grew up in Ireland in the late 1960’s/ early 1970’s. She received her M.A from the Royal College of Art in 1992 and built a brand that captured the spirit of a world that yearned for certainty in tumultuous times. Her patterns were inspired by the upbeat designs of the 60’s and 70’s and the optimistic days of economic recovery, youthful discovery and innocent certainty.

Kiely’s aesthetic is dominated by geometric flowers, leaves and the closest thing the designer has to a logo, her endlessly versatile, scalable and variable Stem pattern. Her imprint can be found on her signature handbags, accessories and clothes, stationery and perfume bottles, homeware and furniture, and even on a ­limited-edition version of the Citroen DS3 car. Kiely’s visually crisp and geometrically disciplined patterns work across clothes, accessories and homeware. This is combined with a particularly broad appeal, zeroing in on that difficult-to-hit sweet spot of delight, commercial success and aesthetic rigour that’s normally the reserve of articulate, perfectly pitched pop music. Mid 1990’s when Orla showcased hats at London Fashion Week, her father noticed that very few women wore them, but all carried a bag. Which started the key offering, made originally of wool, cottons and mesh, she then started making them in leather and bright colours. The Orla Kiely archive of bags consists of bags showcasing two principal characteristics. The ‘Stem’ range is generally produced in classic shapes and in shoulder and cross body versions. The main line has always been reflective of the designer’s latest concept, exploring different techniques and applied with finishes in prints and embroidery.Her patterns will stand the test of time, and I think they already have. If you look at Stem, it’s been going continually for 18 years or so now.” Kiely first studied print and textile design at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin. She moved to London where she studied at the Royal College of Art. Orla often recalled her vivid memories of her family kitchen with its olive-green Formica cupboards and worktops, entire walls with coordinating green and white patterned tiles, and a striking orange gloss ceiling and her Irish environment has informed her creative work since she was a student of textile design in Dublin.