In the ever-evolving landscape of fashion, few designers take a the time to work from the ground up and create fabrics from scratch. For Orla Murphy, recent graduate of the National College of Art and Design (NCAD) in Dublin, the journey of designing fashion isn’t just about creating beautiful pieces—it's about understanding and engaging with the raw materials themselves. Her work, deeply intertwined with Irish culture and landscape, offers a refreshing perspective on what fashion can be when it’s built from the ground up, literally.
"Creative things have always been my thing," she begins.
"I was drawn to the sculptural side of things, but I loved working with fabrics and textures even more." Once she arrived at NCAD, she found her calling in constructed textiles—knitting, weaving, and fabric construction. "I fell in love with the actual construction of fabrics. It just clicked. That’s when I knew this was what I wanted to do."
Her final year at NCAD was particularly significant, as it was deeply personal. "I ended up using sheep wool from my dad’s farm. It was a waste product that no one wanted, but I saw potential in it. I naturally dyed all my pieces, keeping everything sustainable."
Working with sustainability in mind didn't seem like a huge compromise for her as it seemed was ingrained in her from a young age. "My mom loves charity shops, and she passed that on to me. It’s about reusing, upcycling, and never letting things go to waste. My dad, being a sheep farmer, also instilled in me the importance of minimizing waste."
It's always been there
Her experience with sustainable companies like Wallace Sewell in London or Jennifer Slattery in Dublin solidified her commitment. "Seeing how they approach materials and construction smartly and sustainably inspired me. It’s the only way forward."
"The wool in Ireland, for example, is so accessible, but it’s just discarded. That needs to change. People don't like it for fashion because it can be quite scratchy, sheep wool in Ireland is quite coarse but it can be amazing for interior textiles. I found anyway that it's actually surprisingly really soft and just lovely for interior fabrics".
"Fast fashion is just still crazy and sometimes it seems as though there isn't any fixing it, which is heartbreaking. I think there needs to be huge changes still.
Asked what sustainable fashion means to her, Orla supports a vision of going back to what fashion is about.
"I suppose it's about bringing love back into pieces. There's nothing wrong with so many pieces that get just thrown away. But there's so much life in pieces and people bringing that life back into them and re-wearing them or styling them in a different way is what fashion truly is about.
"Fashion is not about owning new clothes every two weeks. No. I feel like that destroys the beauty of fashion and style. Style is something so unique. No one's supposed to look the same.
"Everyone is creative in their own ways. And it's the expression of that excites me"
In Orla's interior textiles collection Glenree, the connection between sustainability and Irish heritage is beautifully articulated, using her father's wool and inspired by the beautiful landscape of her grandfather’s birthplace at the foot of the Wicklow Mountains. Although, she feels as though "Irish culture in fashion is a bit lost lately. Take the Aran jumper—it was once old-fashioned, but now it’s making a comeback. Trends always do that."
For her, it was about taking something old and making it new. "I wanted to make something new out of Irish wool. The structures in my collection were inspired by the land and the old buildings on my dad’s farm. I wanted to show the potential in Irish wool, to create something abstract and new."
This conversation with Orla wa a powerful reminder that fashion can be about more than just consumerism. Her approach, which begins with the raw materials and considers the entire lifecycle of the fabric, reflects a deep commitment to sustainability and creativity. By drawing on Irish culture and landscapes, she’s not only preserving heritage but also reimagining what sustainable fashion can be.
In a world where fast fashion dominates, her dedication to thoughtful, sustainable practices is both inspiring and necessary. Her work suggests that the future of fashion lies not in the endless pursuit of the new, but in the careful consideration of what we already have—and how we can make it better.
