Away with the fairies

FASHION:David Ellwand's fantasy collection of miniature dresses , shoes, and furnishings, , published in a new book called Fairie-Ality Style, is a delight to the eye. It's aimed at fashion and interior designers, and provides an inspiring mix of colours drawn from the natural world, writes DEIRDRE McQUILLAN

Ellwand argues that natural colour combinations can seem at odds with modern fashion, but work brilliantly in nature. Take the iridescent blue of a kingfisher’s back and the red rust of its breast, for example. He applies such unlikely combinations of colour and pattern to fashion and furnishings. Light is the power; perception of colour, he argues, is sensation. “When a flower dies, dries out and fades, where does the colour go?” he asks. “The staggering blue of a bluebell wood in bloom is not merely blue; it is made up of myriad infinite shades, from white to yellow to pink with a billion shades of blue in between. The subtleties of shades combine to create a brilliant visual scene. The same can be said for stones on a beach or leaves on a tree; the colours of each play a part in making the whole.”

Dreamlike dresses composed of faded flowers, of birch bark, or of feathers have patterns and colours impossible to recreate with such depth and richness in manmade materials. Ellward’s compositions are wondrous – a dress made with leaves and peacock plumes, fantastic shoes assembled from acorns, petals, fruit or fiery parrot feathers. The materials are drawn from gathering trips on two continents and the book comes with pull-out colour swatches and a viewer. It’s a book full of imagination.

Here at home, John Rocha’s spring collection has an organic look, with dresses of laser-cut organza laid on like overlapping leaves, typical of his dreamy approach to patchwork. Lainey Keogh’s cobwebby knits also draw from the natural world and weave their magic through their softness and harmonious earthy colours. Rocha’s spring collection is at Havana in Donnybrook and the Design Centre in Powerscourt, Dublin. Keogh, who has moved home and studio to the wilds of Wicklow, will be having a special two-day sale on Friday, March 26th and Saturday, March 27th in the St Stephen’s Suite in Dublin’s Shelbourne Hotel, where one-off items from her spring/summer and autumn/winter collections along with archive showpieces will be on offer. City fairies take note.

Fairie-Ality Styleby David Ellwand is published by Walker Books, £20

AQUATIC STYLE

Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef: A Woolly Wonder, which opened yesterday at the Science Gallery in Trinity College, is a new exhibition from the US, taking its cue from the complex beauty of nature and the fragility of our underwater eco system. It is curated by Margaret and Christine Wertheim from the Institute for Figuring in Los Angeles, an organisation devoted to the aesthetic dimensions of science, mathematics and the technical arts.