We recently caught up with Malahide Designer Emmy Slattery to interview her about her new business ‘Sequins & Threads’, who create custom designed dresses for Debutantes.
Q. Hi Emmy, so what is ‘Sequins & Threads’?
A. Based in London until recently I have relocated in Dublin (I am from Malahide), and have set up a studio on Burgh Quay as I have collaborated with my best friend and fellow NCAD Graduate, Averil Blakely, on an exciting new venture, which we have called ‘Sequins & Threads’. The concept behind our creative collaboration is aimed at debutantes in Ireland, as in the class of 2011, who have recently taken the Leaving Certificate Exams, offering a creative solution to sourcing a their ‘dream’ debs dress, if you will. As I am from Malahide, I would love for girls who lived locally to know about our new project.
Q. Wow, and where did you learn how to do all this?
A. Combined we boast an impressive CV. I was fortunate enough to have been awarded the ‘Nokia Young Designer of the Year Award’ along with the ‘DIT Alfa Romeo Student Designer Award’, (my graduate collection was feature on the front page of the Malahide Gazette) last May. Since then I have gone on to work with designers Christopher Kane, and most recently Gareth Pugh, accompanying the team to Paris Fashion Week, whereby pieces from his collection have most notably been worn by Lady Gaga, Fergie and Beyonce in her ‘Run this World’ video.
I have also made pieces for La Roux, the Klaxons and Natasha Khan from Bat For Lashes, which was worn on stage in Sydney Opera House as part of her comeback gig two weeks ago which was all very exciting! Here is a link to an interview I did recently which covers most of what I have been up to recently http://www.bananareel.ie/ones-to-watch-emmy-slattery
Averil (from Knocklyon) has since worked with designers such as Osman and William Tempest along with being selected as a finalist in the international student design competition ‘Mittelmoda’ which was held in Italy last year.
Q. That sounds fun, so what made you start ‘Sequins & Threads’?
A. We both felt that there is a serious niche in the Irish market for sourcing the ‘perfect’ debs dress, and have sought to offer girls an outlet to attain exactly what they would like to wear on their ’big night’. I’ll just give you a brief description of how we work. We basically have scoured music videos, catwalk shows, red carpet events, and inspirational images (bearing in mind our target market), and have created a portfolio of 8 ‘key looks’ accompanied by colour chips, fabric swatches and mood boards with the intention of guiding and hopefully inspiring the clients dress. In saying that though, some girls know exactly what they want and have gotten in touch with us with, for example, an image of Rihanna at the Grammys, but saying that they would like a similar dress but with a different detail and long sleeves for example. The unique idea behind ‘Sequins & Threads’ is that each dress is 100% unique, and is designed by us and is created exactly to your taste and figure.
Q. Where can we learn more?
A. Here is links to both mine and Averils website if you wanted to have a look at our previous work,
and you can follow us on Facebook here: www.facebook.com/pages/Sequins-Threads/115843221830789
