Grace under pressure

In case you’re thinking of buying Grace Fay a present, there’s one item we suggest you totally avoid – leg warmers. Grace apparently used to have to wear leg-warmers when she attended ballet classes, but she has a good excuse. “I was only six at the time. They were awful and I’ve never worn them since. These days when it comes to leg wear I much prefer to wear socks rather than tights.”

As it happens, while we’re on the subject she admits to one more fashion crime. “I once had this horrible black leather skirt that I made myself. In fact it looked more like a black bag that a skirt. It was a very bad mistake, and I got rid of it,” she says.
Her favourite style goes back to the sixties. “I love all those mod fashions and Mary Quant stuff from the ‘60s, like mini skirts. That’s what I wear most of the time.”
But does she like dressing up for gigs with Television Room? “Yes, I like dressing up anyway. I like the way different clothes gives each person a sense of individuality. We don’t have a specific dress code in Television Room, but I think that at the beginning of a band’s career you have to pay a fair bit of attention to how you look. If we all dressed like Goths, it would make people think we played that type of music. But I think as you become more established you don’t have to pay so much attention to the clothes you wear.”
I point out to her that the cover of the Television Room’s new single has two members of the band dressed in a style that predates the sixties, with the couple standing in an old doorway clutching a banjo and a mandolin. So what gives? “The single is called ‘Modern Boys and Girls’ so we thought it would be fun to have a cover that was quite the reverse of modern,” she tells me.
Grace reckons that her favourite shops are probably Urban Outfitters and Ad Hoc in Dublin’s Temple Bar, and Top Shop on Stephen’s Green. Are there labels she watches out for while on shopping duty? “Obviously I have to buy what I can afford, but I love the Fornarina range that BT2 stock.”
She prefers to shop alone as she doesn’t like the pressure that comes with shopping with others, and she regularly pops into second-hand stores. “I often go to Wild Child in Dublin or to The Harlequin, near the George’s Street Arcade. But I have a sister who’s 7 years younger than me and I often swap clothes with her,” she says. She is as mystified as I am as to why it is that women often swap clothes with each other, while men rarely if ever do so.
Her choice of best-dressed women? She goes back to the ’60s again. “I’d go for Twiggy or Jean Shrimpton. I’d prefer them to to-day’s models who all seem to look much the same. I tend to go for the more outrageous and individualistic look and there’s not too much of that around these days. I’d like to wear more outrageous stuff on stage too.”

Television Room’s new single ‘Modern Boys & Girls’ is out now on Faction Records. They play Radio City (Revolver) on March 29.