Legendary Irish designer Clodagh was heralded by the top designers in America this month - so why doesn't Ireland do likewise?
Ireland can be famously slow to recognize the grand achievements of our most gifted artists.
Whether these artists are working as poets or playwrights, painters, or designers, we can take too long to appreciate what the world and his wife already know.
Thankfully the top-tier American design world does not share our hesitation. Recently, when Irish designer Clodagh (so famous that her New York-based company is known only by her first name) was feted at the launch of her new rug collaboration (with celebrated handmade rug maker Marc Phillips) a who's-who of the American design world assembled to herald her career and her latest design collection.
The launch allowed another design icon, Interior Design's Editor-in-Chief Cindy Allen, to not just announce the new collection but also to applaud the 83-year-old Irish designer's impressively trail-blazing career.
Clodagh has always been at the forefront, with her designs focusing on natural materials, livability and sustainability (and simple human joy!) alongside esoteric - to some - Chinese practices like Feng Shui, many decades before they became commonplace elsewhere.
The star-studded launch (and love fest) gave Cindy Allen an opportunity to announce Clodagh's new works but also to reflect on the career achievements of the Irish design legend, who commands the kind of respect and affection that New York only reserves for the truly iconic.
“My design philosophy is to make people happy and comfortable in their environment,” she told Allen. “Since I don’t know the rules, I can actually break them all the time,” she laughed.
In conversation with IrishCentral, Clodagh put her international success and longevity down to curiosity, but intuition and instinct are also key factors she said. Her new collection, inspired and built around the five elements: wood, metal, fire, water, and earth, tell you how experiential her outlook is and – despite her globetrotting ways - how Irish, too.
A hidden part of her success is the gift of an Irish childhood, as well as an Irish sense of humor she says. “I've been a bit intuitive and haunted since I was a little girl," she tells IrishCentral.
“My designs try to balance the energy in a place and just make people feel comfortable and happy and their best selves, finding their best selves.”
Showcasing the interconnectedness of nature and personal expression through her striking designs and color choices, each of the elements of the new collection coordinates with specific energies to create balance and harmony in a work or living space.
"We absolutely loved collaborating with Clodagh, seeing her vision come to life through her design process, and creating five rugs that speak to groundedness, and her overall design ethos. We consider ourselves lucky to have such a design icon a part of the Marc Phillips family," Marc Partial, co-owner of Marc Phillips, told IrishCentral.
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