Dublin Day 2, Part 2

While I’m no expert on couture fashion, the pieces displayed at the National Museum of Ireland- Decorative Arts’s Special exhibition of Ib Jorgensen’s fashion were clearly a cut above the ordinary. Born in Denmark, Jorgensen immigrated with his family to Ireland in 1950. He attended Dublin’s Grafton Academy of Dress Designing and first garnered attention when he won the Academy Cup is his graduating year fashion show in the tailored suits and coats division.

Hand embroidered and beaded silk jacket with evening skirt of green silk faille, 1989

Bead embroidery detail

Bead embroidery detail

Jorgensen’s work caught the eye of fashion hours, Nicolas O’Dwyer, who hired him as a designer and pattern cutter at only 20 years old.  He was strongly influenced by the high standards of quality demanded by the workforce dervived from an old Jewish tailoring business.

Ib Jorgensen on the exhibition poster at the National Museum of Ireland- Decorative Arts, Dublin

High quality tailoring, superior pattern cutting, a relentless attention to detail and flawless finishing became the hallmarks of Jorgensen’s work.

The exhibition looks back at Ib’s long career, displaying a selection of some forty garments including day, cocktail and evening wear from across three and a half decades, supplemented with original fashion photography and illustrations. His first wife Patricia, a textile designer, created designs for extravagant hand beading, appliqué and embroidery, and these techniques were frequently used to great effect on Ib’s evening wear.

Hand beaded sequin shift dress in a harlequin design of soft pastel colors, 1967

Evening dress of orange silk voile with halter necked bodice entirely beaded and embroidered, 1985

Halter bodice detail

Beadwork embroidery detail.

For more information on this exhibition, go to the museum’s website at:

https://www.museum.ie/Decorative-Arts-History/Exhibitions/Current-Exhibitions/Ib-Jorgensen-–-A-Fashion-Retrospective

I promised I’d post pictures of my Viking Apron dress when finished, so here’s the whole costume, as well as my elder son Ryan and younger, Coleman, in their gear. The golden apron dress is made of linen, which I hand-dyed. I purchased the two Turtle brooches from Raymond’s Quiet Press, who makes historical recreations (from jewelry to helms.) I already had the strings of beads, which I hand-stitched onto the apron dress, in the Viking fashion. We had a fine time at the “Good Yule” feast, with a fantastic smorgasbord of both old Norse and Byzantine food.

Now that the Good Yule celebration is out of the way, I can get back to my regular creative life, at least until Ursalmas, the next big area event from the Society of Creative Anachronism, which my sons want to attend in the end of January. At least I already have a costume made now, so I won’t have to do that, although it looks like Coleman may now also be interested, so he may want to have me make a more authentic outfit.

More to come later tonight. Now that I have this out of the way, I can focus on more of the creative efforts closer to my heart!