Charlotte Ryan speaks to Irish designer Oran Aurelio about presenting his first collection, resurrecting a forgotten glamour and enlisting his mother as a runway model.
From CMAT's blue velvet gúna on the cover of her latest album Euro-Country, to Siobhán McSweeney's bewitching ensembles on Traitors Ireland, Oran Aurelio has swiftly become one of Ireland's most promising and popular fashion creators.
The Irish designer has cultivated a loyal and global following thanks to his opulent creations that blend eclecticism, pop culture, and drag aesthetics with the precision of high fashion and a lexicon of obscure references.
But if you've only seen Aurelio's work on social media, that's only part of the story.
In the majestic setting of Dublin's National Concert Hall, the Dublin-born designer presented his first collection, The Duchess of Malfi, a spellbinding homage to the 17th century play by John Webster of the same name.
Aurelio had chosen the classical text as the inspiration behind his graduate project in IADT - which he completed just in May - and found that he couldn't let the source material go. More and more characters and designs sprung from him.
With just six models - one of which was his own mother - Aurelio spun a story of lust, betrayal and family, with extravagant gowns that varied between crocheted column dresses and satin smock dresses, to corseted ballgowns.
Models walked to a finely curated playlist featuring scores from Hollywood classics like All About Eve and Funny Girl.
Superficially, this collection couldn't be further away from the looks that made his name - corsets featuring Kate Bush's face and the 'sexy chicken' look created for CMAT. However, according to the designer, it's the "truest representation" of his aesthetic, and they share his fine-toothed attention to detail.
"The whole genesis of the collection was 'can I make a late medieval, Jacobean play into a 1950's, 60's Old Hollywood production?'" he tells me after the show, speaking on the grand staircase of the National Concert Hall.
"I really wanted to make it a personal collection that I was proud of, and I think I am. Even to the playlist that I chose, I really wanted everything to just be big, grand, sweeping, glamorous.
"There's a sense of, I suppose, a specific genre of glamour that I don't necessarily think is celebrated enough in fashion. The society ladies of the 60s and 70s, people like Babe Paley, Nan Kempner, even people like Bianca Jagger, the people of New York, I feel like that kind of era of society is - bits and pieces have been taken, but that pure essence of glamour and dressing for occasion is kind of slowly diminishing."
Channeling that bygone glamour was Aurelio's own mother, who was the dignified and elegant Model No. 5.
"My parents are the most supportive people on this planet", he says. "My dad was at the door helping, my sister was helping as a dresser, and my mom is my biggest inspiration, whether I want to admit that or not. Getting to feature her in this was just a beautiful thing. It was a lot of me yelling at her, being like, 'No! Do it again, do it again, do it again', but with love. She got it."
Aurelio explained that each model was named for a number, in yet another homage to fashion's forebearers.
"There's a bunch of Balenciaga and Charles James and Madame Grès fitting photos from the couturiers and they all have these number plates", he explains, adding that these number plates would read "001", representing look no. 1 and so on.
"That always stuck with me", he says. "I love the idea of not anonymity but like, you're just no. 1 and they created this character based off of this. Everyone was a character, everyone was a specific vibe, everyone represented something."
Having originally wanting to go into theatre as a playwright, I wondered did he give his models back stories to channel?
"I didn't want to tell anyone that, but I did, in my head", he says. "In my head I was like, each model has a line-up that has a story that I am really proud of. Liath [Hannon, model and actress] opening and closing the show, she's just beyond divine in everything she does, just seeing her walk the show was an honour. She gets it and she gets the character."
So with his first presentation complete and showcased to the some of the country's leading figures in fashion, how is the designer feeling?
"I just feel so full of love and joy and gratitude. Words genuinely do just fail to describe my emotions right now. I've never felt such gratitude for everyone helping me out. I've put so much work into [the collection] and seeing it in fruition and in person and everything together.
"So overwhelming. Everyone has been nothing but the utmost generous, kind, so supportive, but I am so exhausted. I'm so tired."
