The business empire, which Kiely runs with her husband, Dermott Rowan, from a small office and two boutiques in London, has not only earned the designer export awards and industry accolades, but she has even been immortalised on an Irish 82-cent stamp, the type most often used for first-class overseas mail. A Life in Pattern by Orla Kiely Wasilak, Sarah (28 October 2015). "Kate Middleton Wore This Exact Outfit 3 Years Ago, and It Still Looks Just as Good". PopSugar . Retrieved 7 February 2022. Her work has a way of making people feel upbeat,” Nothdruft admits. “It makes them feel safe and comfortable by making references to the past, but it’s certainly not nostalgic.”

Orla often recalled her vivid memories of her family kitchen with its olive-green Formica cupboards and worktops, entire walls with coordinating green and white patterned tiles, and a striking orange gloss ceiling and her Irish environment has informed her creative work since she was a student of textile design in Dublin.

Let us help you

Orla Kiely is undeniably fashion’s sweetheart with her iconic feminine prints that fit seamlessly across collections from homeware to ready-to-wear season after season, always with a hint of her favourite era, the 1960s. The Irish designer began her career designing hats before creating major waves of innovation with the idea of using laminate cloth for handbags in the late 90s, with her distinctive designs leading her to be described as ‘the Queen of Prints’ as time leads on they have seen her work transferred across kitchen and homeware, clothing, accessories, and even cars. Kiely’s visually crisp and geometrically disciplined patterns work across clothes, accessories and homeware. This is combined with a particularly broad appeal, zeroing in on that difficult-to-hit sweet spot of delight, commercial success and aesthetic rigour that’s normally the reserve of articulate, perfectly pitched pop music. She has been awarded the title of Visiting Professor of Textiles at the Royal College of Art and was made a Senior Fellow in 2016. [2] On Monday 17 th September, Orla Kiely ceased trading. Meaning that online business and retail stores in both London and Kildare closed. After seeing this news, I wanted to celebrate the designers fantastic work and patterns from over the years by visiting the Fashion and Textile museum’s exhibition dedicated to her life’s work. a b c d e Walshe, Barbara. "Orla Kiely: The Irish Charm". couttswoman.com. Archived from the original on 21 February 2011.

She’s very popular in Asia, because what she does is seen as quite cute in places like Japan and Korea, whereas in New York City it’s seen as contemporary but charming in a way that’s appealing to professional women, who see it as being feminine without being fussy or twee.” Emling, Shelley (5 June 2009). "A designer's gift for understatement". New York Times . Retrieved 7 February 2022. (subscription required) The exhibition charts the growth and success of Orla Kiely from her first collection of hats at London Fashion Week in 1994, through the advent of the iconic Orla Kiely bag in the mid-nineties to her freelance work for department stores executed from her kitchen table in 1998. If you're looking for some fun home learning art at KS1 level, this could be the perfect resource for you. This step-by-step art activity is easy to follow and can be created with simple objects like a sharp pencil, a small knife, paint and a potato. It is inspired by the designs of Orla Kiely OBE, an Irish designer and artist known for her bold, colourful prints. It could be used when teaching printing techniques, as part of a design project or as an art activity during art week. By walking through the exhibition, you follow the steps that Orla has taken from design, through to promotion and prints. Including giant dresses down to miniature dolls, her collection showcases over 150 patterns across all products from T-shirts to teapots.

Required Cookies & Technologies

a b c Jenkinson, Emily (2 September 2010). "Pattern by Orla Kiely". thegoodwebguide.co.uk. Archived from the original on 26 September 2018. Despite the global reach of her designs, the hues, colour ­combinations and motifs ­employed by Kiely remain ­inextricably linked to her childhood. They reference fabrics, objects and interiors from a particular moment in the 1960s and 1970s that are profoundly domestic. This may explain the atmosphere that's artfully conjured in many of Kiely's advertising campaigns, an aesthetic that's reminiscent of the world ­depicted by Hanif Kureishi in The Buddha of Suburbia. She has completed two publications entitled Home and Pattern, both published by Conran Octopus. She released a third publication, A Life in Pattern, in early 2018 to coincide with her exhibition at the Fashion and Textile Museum in May. Foam Board Printing Step-by-Step Instructions - Another resource that will help your children understand printing. This one is a set of KS1 friendly instructions which will help children to produce a print using a foam board.