Irish born milliner, Grainne Maher joins Fashion Scout this season to showcase her SS15 collection. With an array of perspex embellished hats and jewellery in the exhibition hall, we spoke aspirations, inspiration and how she broke into the industry.
How do you feel to be showing at Fashion Scout this year?
It's been absolutely fantastic, I was thrilled when I was selected to show here at the exhibition hall. My collection is called 'Blรกthanna', which is the Irish word for flowers. It's predominantly based on floral perspex shapes.
Is there any particular place in which the inspiration stemmed from?
No, my last AW14 collection was based on leaf shapes so it was a natural progression from that. They're laser cut so they've been quite simply shaped originally and now I'm trying to do more complicated 3D perspex work.
I'm interested in the properties of the materials that I'm using, so I'm really focusing on the perspex at the moment. I don't think many other milliners are using laser cutting - heat, wire work and some Swarovski crystals. I reference the floral shapes, but I work quite intuitively and sculpturally when I get the stuff in my hand. The collection begins from there.
Did you originally study millenary or did you get into it by passion?
I trained with a few independent milliners, but it's basically a labour of love and largely self taught. I actually have a degree in music, I didn't study fashion, but I've been doing this for years now.
What is the future for your brand?
This is my bread and butter. I design jewellery as well so I want to build my name up as a milliner. I want to take the brand further afield and not just Ireland and the UK.
By Joanna McCutcheon, (@Joannamcc_).
Photographs by Ian Davies.