Designs For Life: Interview with Liadan Scott-Keogh

Sometimes you catch stars right as they’re in their ascendance. One such example is Liadan Scott-Keogh. A native of Portmarnock, Scott-Keogh was one of 27 fashion students to graduate from the Limerick School of Art and Design earlier this year, and the deserving winner of the AIB Graduate Business Development Award for her graduate collection, entitled Civil Contingency. Scott-Keogh has always had an interest in fashion, and even as a child was determined to carve out her own unique style.
 “I am the youngest of six children and I have always felt that this has played a part in how I turned out!” she explains. “I was pretty free to do what I wanted and never felt pressure to be or think a certain way. As well as that, having three older sisters I always looked at how they dressed. I started to dress with a level of maturity from a young age.”
 Scott-Keogh studied at the Limerick School of Art and Design, where she completed a BA in Fashion Design, and says that LSAD “was an amazing place for me to develop my skills, as well as an understanding of interdisciplinary mediums of art and design.” 
 Scott-Keogh’s great love is storytelling, and her output always has a message about social issues.
 “My work consists of three elements; concept, print, and truth to form,” she notes. “I particularly enjoy creating a collection by developing a concept through my own photography, which I can then develop into print. I alternate between print and fabric manipulation to portray my idea.”
 Conveying her message through textiles is a vital component of Scott-Keogh’s work, and her travels and experience working with other designers helped her hone her craft.
 “I previously interned for Ambra Fiornza Berlin and Isobel Vollrath Berlin before my final year at LSAD,” she recalls. “During my time in Berlin I worked with textile artist Sofia Olander, where I had the opportunity of a one-on-one learning experience in screen-printing and textile development. That really benefited me in my own practice. After my three-month work placement with Richard Malone, I was offered a job and I’ve continued working full-time with him.”
 For her graduate collection last year, Scott-Keogh created a dynamic and socially conscious collection called Civil Contingency, which had a unique inspiration; the Irish housing crisis.
 “Each piece represents the overall recurring nature of housing issues within Ireland,” reflects Scott-Keogh. “I focused on the idea of history repeating itself, through the process of breaking down and building up. I used pleating and screen print to represent the descent of the Ballymun flats from their beginning in the 1960s as a result of a housing crisis, to the final demolition in 2015 during the current crisis.”
 Scott-Keogh’s stunning collection features intricate tailoring and prints that from a distance look like impressionistic paintings folded into stunning origami shapes. On closer examination, her inspiration becomes clear, and the beauty of her pieces is heightened by their layered meanings and sense of local consciousness.
 Her work has been deservedly recognised; for her Civil Contingency collection, Scott-Keogh was awarded the AIB IFIL Work Placement Bursary, which included a three month full-time work placement with London based Irish designer, Richard Malone, and a prize of €5000. She was also named the winner of the New Ireland Assurance Graduate Award 2016.
 With all these accolades, fashion insiders are eagerly awaiting Scott-Keogh’s next collection, which she reveals is called Divide and Conquer.
 “It focuses on the continuation and further proliferation of the problems within the housing crisis,” she explains. “In this collection, I lead away from the breaking down and building up of the political structures within Irish history, to focus on the sombre reality of current issues. I use print and colour to represent the pressures upon society.”
 
For further information, contact Liadan Scott-Keogh at [email protected]. You can see more of her work at instagram.com/liadanscottkeogh.