A real head turner

I do think coming from a farming background and having no influence in fashion and being from the Burren in Co Clare, which is so isolated from the fashion world, made me more creative because I am not influenced by anyone or anything,” Margaret O’Connor states.

The Boston, Tubber woman, who has moved home from London and is launching her shop in Ennis in July, is certainly creative. Her hats are testament to this.

Full of quirky colours and textures, they have garnered the attention of Lady Gaga who wore one to the Isabella Blow exhibition in London a few years ago.

“Her stylist contacted me and requested to see the hats. I was in London at the time. And I said yes, she can have one,” Margaret laughs.

Margaret and her seven siblings grew up on a mixed farm in the Burren, Co Clare.

“Daddy is really interested in horses and he breeds some Irish Draught horses and we have suckler cows, calves and sheep. My mother is really into feeding the lambs, that’s her main job,” she says.

“When I was younger, I had a pet lamb and I brought the wool to Coleman Keane’s in Gort and my father used to let us have the money from the wool to treat ourselves, so it was a big treat,” she recalls.

Little did Margaret know then that she would be designing knitwear hats from wool in years to come with designer Derek Lawlor for the Guangzhou International Fashion Week in China.

Last April, she created a line of hats to complement Derek Lawlor’s collection and won a global innovation design award for her efforts.

“We were picked as the people the organisers really liked, so there were one-hundred-and-something designers and we were in the top five or six that they really liked. It is probably the most exciting thing to have happened in my career so far,” Margaret says.

The milliner says she has always had an interest in art and studied it in secondary school, which led her to GMIT where she completed an art degree, specialising in textiles.

“After that I decided I wanted to work with hat designers because it is a combination of sculpture – I like 3D shape form – and textiles. I moved to Edinburgh and worked with a hat designer there and then moved to London where I worked with Noel Stewart and Philip Treacy,” she explains.

From there, she got her millinery papers at the Kensington and Chelsea College which qualified her as a milliner, setting up a studio in London for a while.

Developed

“I think the best thing I did was the Kensington and Chelsea course out of everything; I think that year I developed as a designer, I came into my own,” she says.

Margaret describes her style as eclectic: “I think I would be a conceptual artist who happens to be working in the medium of millinery. I think I could do textiles or I could do other things as well. I would do conceptual art pieces for exhibitions and things.

“I have a line of real arty, high-end fashion and then I also do the commercial things, so I have some of the elements from my avant-garde in my commercial hats.”

In 2014, she won millinery designer of the year at the Irish Fashion Innovation Awards. Margaret believes her training is what really sets her apart.

“I wanted to develop my skill so that you couldn’t see a stitch in the hat, you know. I wanted to develop that craftsmanship so people can instantly see quality when they look at my hats. That’s why I moved to London, to learn from the best, and I have learned from the best hat designers,” she says.

Her shop in Ennis is on Summer Hill, Market Place, and is targeted at everyone.

“It will cater for everyone from the young and fun to mother of the bride; I want to cater for all types of people,” she says.

In the front section of the shop she will have her hats that are ready to buy and hire, while in the back will be her studio where she will do her commission pieces.

Visit www.margaretoconnormillinery.com or check out her Facebook page: Margaret O’Connor Millinery, Twitter and Instagram: @hatsbymargaret