Second Skin

Second Skin explores the links between consumption and production and has sought to develop collaborations between Irish fashion designers and textile producers

‘Second Skin’ is one of the core touring exhibitions developed for Irish Design 2015 by the Design & Crafts Council of Ireland. To date the exhibition has toured to the National Craft Gallery in Kilkenny and to City Hall in London, and I had the pleasure of opening the exhibition at the Playhouse Theatre, Derry as part of Irish Design 2015 and hosting a debate on design and manufacture in Ireland.

The exhibition is the result of collaborations between Irish fashion designers, woollen mills and textile producers, digital fabric producers, tailors, retailers and upcyclers. It also includes an interactive space exploring recent international developments in sustainable fashion production.

Second Skin posed a challenge to four Irish fashion labels – JRothwell, Joanne Hynes, NATALIEBCOLEMAN and Lennon Courtney – to design, source and produce a garment or range of clothing on the island of Ireland and to document the opportunities and challenges in doing so. In the realisation of these garments, designers collaborated with and were supported by a range of third level institutes, organisations and producers in Dublin, Donegal, Derry, Kilkenny and Wicklow.