Graduate Exhibition: St Angela's BA in Textiles, Fashion and Design with Business Management & Lily Lolly Craftfest
June 13th sees a new wave of creative talent take centre stage at the Factory Space, Sligo. The St Angela's College graduate class of 2016 in Textiles, Fashion and Design with Business Management will be showcasing their design collections as part of the Lily Lolly Craft Fest.
Over the course of the week the designers themselves will be there to meet with visitors, talk about their collections and the stories behind their engaging work.
This exciting exhibition will officially open on Tuesday 14th at 6.30pm in the Factory performance space with guest speakers including Muireann Charleton from the Design and Crafts Council of Ireland and is open to the public from the 13th-17th of June.

St. Angela's college lecturers Rebecca Marsden, Emer Maher Dowling and Dr. Kathryn Mc Sweeney are giving workshops in exploring texturing and structure in fashion and textile design, hand dyeing, free machine embroidery and applique respectively in St. Angela's college on the 15th & 17th June for Lily Lolly Craftfest. An exciting additional event this year is taking place in the factory performance space on Friday the 17th June where Eddie Shanahan is in Conversation with Designers -, Leonie Cornelius, Martina Hamilton, Joseph Martin, Rebecca Marsden and Ashleigh Smith. See the Lily Lolly Craftfest Facebook page for full details.

Meet the graduate class of 2016

Jade Reidy
'A Textured World of Emotions'. This collection is based around an emotional concept connected to a woodland that is located near where Jade grew up- Hazelwood.
'Colour and textural inspiration have been drawn from Hazelwood, along with the feeling I want my graduate collection to communicate'.
Design development on digital print and interesting surface qualities is a key focus throughout. Jade uses digitally printed fabrics from original art pieces using acid dyes on paper and adding salt to act as a resist. This created the unusual bleeding design which was then further developed into a mirrored repeat print.
Emma Curtis
With a graduate collection inspired by dragonflies, Emma looked at the beauty and colours of these unusual creatures, each unique in their own way. Rock formations were referenced as a secondary source for shape and structure and then the two combined to create statement designs.
Discovering that dragonflies do not live very long Emma designed and created an occasion wear collection based on the concept that as life is so short you need to enjoy celebrations when you can. 'Let life take you and enjoy the occasion'.
Saoirse O Reilly
Saoirse created a gender neutral collection based on the clothes of Ireland's past entitled 'History Ungendered'.
A belief that all people should have the freedom to wear what expresses their own individuality without the constraints of their gender underpins this collection.
'I took inspiration from the clothes of the past, when there were definite gender codes people were expected to follow, and recreated them to reflect today's society where the lines between gender have become blurred. My collection titled - 'Bringing the Old to the New', is a fresh and contemporary take on clothing but also manages to stay true to Ireland's history'.
Angela Lavin
Taking inspiration from the natural world for this graduate collection 'Forever Young' Angela has designed a range of clothing for the 12-14 year old female market.
'I was determined to put the fun back in clothes'.
Using natural fabrics, some in their loom state, Angela dyed the fabrics with vibrant colours and used pleating and embellishments to enhance the designs. The range consists of key pieces that can be mixed and matched. These garments are very durable and can be swapped or passed on when outgrown.
Roseanne Mc Namee
Roseanne's chosen theme for her graduate collection is transparent bubbles, focusing on how a bubble is formed and what shapes it creates.
'I found the colours of a bubble fascinating and wanted to investigate them more'.
To create this collection Roseanne has chosen fabrics to replicate the qualities of a bubble including iridescent fabrics, cotton and knitwear.