On the Radar: Jamie Manley

XYZ took a trip to Grafton Academy to speak with design student Jamie Manley to talk about his upcoming work and his experience in the Irish fashion industry.

What is your experience of the fashion industry in Ireland? 

Well, to be honest for quite a while it was pretty non-existent. When I first started, I landed an internship with Robyn Lynch back in the summer of 2019 and that really opened my eyes to what could be achieved from fashion. To experience it all, the whole process, back stage at LFW, all this stuff I had seen for years I had been thrown into, so you can imagine how hard it was to chase that high again, in a country that really had no support, no community or no interest to change the horrible pattern that had come before.

I tried to understand in what scenarios was fashion being accepted and also what types of fashion was being accepted and it was so far from where I saw myself,  and when I realised how hard it would be to get the support I needed, it became very much of a “I’ll do it myself” attitude towards the fashion industry here.

How do you feel this has shaped the way you design here in Ireland?

It’s definitely impacted the way I design for the fact that there hasn’t been anything here for me that’s pushed me to put my work out there. By that, I mean I could have easily released hoodies and pants and T-shirts etc from the jump, because that’s what I had been making, but for what? To be titled an ‘Irish streetwear brand’ and to be grouped into a bracket with every other brand in Ireland? It’s not what I wanted, I don’t see this country as the main goal, and I don’t see myself as a streetwear brand, so I figured out my signature style and what it was I enjoyed seeing in garments, and honed in on that. Challenging myself to make it functional.

Jamie Manley -

“To be titled an ‘Irish streetwear brand’ and to be grouped into a bracket with every other brand in Ireland? It’s not what I wanted”

Amazing! What would you say your signature style is and how would you differentiate yourself from other designers?

My style would be something along the lines of a hiking chic. I take a lot of inspiration from architecture and curved shapes and structures. I’d say I differ from other designers because I know that I’m not in this to reinvent the wheel, or to force out 60 looks twice a year. I don’t like the idea of constantly having to create new designs each season and that everything you’ve done previously just kind of gets forgotten about. I want my garments to be timeless and to get the most out of them, but, I’m still trying to figure out how I can do that and make an impact. I think that’s the hardest thing, is trying to stay relevant in an industry of trends and constant rotation of big name brands.

I love that! So your about quality over quantity?

1000%! I’m really not a big fan of consumerism.

What is your overall creative process like when devising a collection from beginning to end?

A lot of the time I work backwards which I wouldn’t recommend doing, because I hadn’t been the most fond of drawing my design development. So what I use to do was design in my head and then try and connect all the dots after. I’ve created a good amount of garments by just staring into space and designing in my head, and just going straight to the pattern and drawing it out, but that’s because I neglected drawing for so long that I can visualise stuff in my head.

It’s not overly efficient, so I make sure to put everything on paper. It all starts with the initial concept or inspiration, broadly speaking mine has been architecture and nature, and exploring them in further detail, whether I look into specific details of these concepts or just working off of images relative to them like buildings/places/people from these places etc and explore them deeper. Then I expand on each design after I put it down, by the end it could be completely different to when I started.

You said you created a lot of your garments from staring in to space, In what way do you think technology is impacting the future of the fashion world? 

I mean the reason everything is so fast is because of social media and the internet, nothing can be perceived to the extent it should be because there’s a post loading up right after ready to do the same thing, so you can’t really have that same impact. If you do, you probably have to do it all over again very soon, so in that sense technology has definitely played a huge part in ruining our attention spans and also not appreciating good craftsmanship, but otherwise technology implemented into garments is pretty sick. I really enjoy seeing techy things going on with clothes or as some would say ‘Smart Clothing’.

Who, in your dream world, would you design for?

I’d actually love to dress Robert Sheehan, I think he just has such a sick look and hes one of my favourite actors so would be super cool to put him in my stuff. I think then maybe ASAP Rocky, the guy knows how to get dressed and just looks cold in everything, so I think he’d appreciate my clothes!

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