Confessions Of A Style Counsellor

I’ve never met the seventh son of a seventh son before, but that’s what fashion designer Paul Costelloe assures me he is. “What’s even more bizarre is that my youngest son is also a seventh son”, he continues. “And my wife is a seventh child. I thought we were unique but John Rocha told me that he and his wife are also both the seventh children of their respective parents. It’s a fascinating co-incidence.”

Paul Costelloe is in Vicar St. tonight to launch the Ragus extravaganza, which plays at the venue throughout July and August. The designer has designed the costumes for the production, which is a music and dance show that originally comes from the Aran islands.

“I had seen the show in Aran where myself and my family have holidayed for years,” he explains. “When I was approached to design the costumes I was pleased to say ‘yes’ as I enjoy the opportunity to try new things. I was interested in trying to accentuate the movement of the dancers and also reflect in the costumes something of the heritage and indeed the atmosphere of the west of Ireland. It was quite a different experience to the type of clothing design I would normally produce. And the chance to work with such beautiful and talented dancers was irresistible; one of the reasons I went into designing women’s fashion was because I adore beautiful women.”

How did his interest in high fashion begin, since a career in haute couture is hardly the most popular choice for Blackrock College graduates?

“I was always interested in fine art and particularly painting. Blackrock had an excellent Art department during my time there and I was encouraged to express my interest. I was never an academic child, I couldn’t pass an exam to save my life, so a career in the academic arts wasn’t an option. I briefly considered a career in agriculture, but again I wouldn’t have been able to study that at college, and gradually I developed an interest in fashion that led to my being offered a place in Paris with the designer Jacques Esterel.

“It was a fantastic learning experience, since I was one of a large group sketching around a huge table all day, and if your designs were among those selected you got paid, if not, you didn’t. It was a pretty rough time but I learned a lot. Especially about standards of tailoring and how a good design must be matched by excellent quality in the manufacturing process.”

So does he himself run up his designs on a sewing machine?

“(Laughs) Good God no, I couldn’t sew a button on a shirt! That’s not a designer’s job, my job is to create a look and choose a fabric and match that to the image I’m trying to create. Then I would work with a tailor to the pattern I’ve drawn and when I see the clothes on a person I can make whatever adjustments to the garment in order to make it perfect. One of my talents is an ability to work with people, to communicate, which is a talent of the Irish, I feel. There’s a sense of integrity and pride in Irish women and I think that we’re maturing as a nation and that’s reflected in how Irish women now see themselves. We’re now allowing ourselves to celebrate what it is about ourselves that makes us unique.”

This opinion contrasts greatly with perhaps the designer’s most infamous utterance when he declared that “Irish women have no style”.

“In fact I didn’t say that at all,” he says. “I don’t know if you noticed one of the female dancers tonight, she wasn’t the lead but she was incredibly beautiful and graceful, and very Irish. That’s style. That girl probably doesn’t wear designer clothes or eat at A-list restaurants but that’s not what style is. The type of people to whom I was referring in that interview were the women you see in a certain type of magazine who assume you can buy style and wear it like a cloak, and you can’t. Real style comes from within, from a confidence and an acceptance of self.

“The fashion industry has become big business and it’s very hard for a young independent Irish designer to compete with that. If you go to the United States there are really only about five major labels. Most graduates will be employed by a major fashion house and will produce designs under that label. Also there is no indigenous manufacturing industry here. The problem is not about a lack of talented young designers. I was judging a competition at the Limerick School of Art and Design recently and I was inspired by the creativity I witnessed, and inspired. I confess I took the old sketchpad out! Fantastic, way out designs. But it’s prohibitively expensive for a young designer to be independent and compete with the huge houses.”

The fashion industry is known for its tales of drug and sexual excess. As a man with a young daughter himself, would he consider allowing his child to become a model?

“My daughter is fifteen years-old and very beautiful but modelling is an incredibly tough business. The tales of drug use and exploitation are not without a grain of truth, but I’m happy to say that I myself haven’t been exposed to any of that. I think the rapid pace of the life and the youth of the girls can lead to impressionable people making bad choices. At the very top of the scale it’s hard to avoid. The people they associate with and whatever. Particularly the English girls. The American ‘corn-fed’ models from the Bible Belt seem to handle the pressures much better, perhaps because of a more Baptist upbringing. The English girls are often pretty wild ladies.”

Are the girls not protected by their agencies?

“Often, that isn’t the situation. It’s a very rough business and some of the people who are running those agencies, particularly English agencies, are as bad as anyone else.”

Is the fact that a girl may be being exploited a consideration when he considers which model to use?

“Sadly, no. If she looks good in the clothes, I’ll book her. But I’ve heard nightmare stories about the antics of particular girls and then you meet them and they’re really nice young women.”

It has to be said though, that most of the women who model clothes at fashion shows have little in common, in terms of their looks, with the average woman on the street. Who is he designing clothes for?

“I am designing clothes for the woman on the street,” he insists. “The shows are really a media event designed to publicise the collections. Perhaps eighty per cent of what’s on the catwalk won’t be available in-store, yet the themes are related and you need the publicity that the shows generate to sell the collection.”

In recent years he has branched out into other areas of work, including interior and product design.

“That’s really just to make a crust,” he says dryly.

Surely he must be worth a fortune though. Is he a millionaire?

“(Laughs) No, I’m certainly not. I am in the sense that I’ve got seven children, but I don’t have a million in the bank! But I do enjoy the creativity of working in other areas and it keeps my mind active and inspired. Which is why I’m delighted to be involved inthe Ragus project, it’s something different.”

Ragus is at Vicar St., Dublin throughout July and August