RCA Womenswear Fashion Student Awarded Inaugural Bursary from Kildare Village
Michael Stewart, first-year MA student in Fashion Womenswear, is the recipient of the inaugural Kildare Village Bursary. The bursary is awarded to a Royal College Art fashion student in his or her first year of MA graduate study, having graduated from an Irish undergraduate university. Stewart – who received a BA in Womenswear from Limerick School of Art and Design – will use the funds to support his remaining studies and the development of a collection, including material and production costs.Â
Bursaries play a significant role in the lives of students at the RCA, making sure that it is possible for the best and brightest students to receive critical support throughout the course of their studies. In keeping with the company’s interest in social responsibility and sustainable business in fashion, Kildare Village established their bursary in order to promote a burgeoning interest in contemporary Irish fashion – to foster not only the aspirations, but also the practical needs of young Irish designers.Â
As part of
this platform, Stewart exhibited some of his early work at the Kildare showcase
for Irish design talent, which encouraged people to visit Kildare and to
consider the exciting prospects of Irish practitioners working across a variety
of fashion practices. This initiative, launched in March 2016, is called From the Isle and weaves together
diverse threads of Irish talent across fashion, craft, food and art with the
aim to express a commitment to nurturing the wealth of emerging talent in
Ireland’s creative sector.
Andy Marshall, Business Director of Kildare Village, comments: ‘This is an exciting time for Irish fashion and Kildare Village is proud to be a champion of the new energy and talent rejuvenating the sector. We hope that the Fashion Bursary nurtures this energy and talent, investing in the future of our promising young designers and helping pave the way to a strong native fashion industry.’
Stewart is an excellent example of such talent. Following his degree at LSAD in 2013, he was one of eight designers chosen to be part of In the Fold, an exhibition at the International Fashion Showcase during London Fashion Week 2015 – an opportunity to show his work for the first time to an influential International audience with the support of Irish Design 2015, who also received support from Kildare Village.Â
Stewarts’s aesthetic is unique, with a focus on craft-based processes marked by a strong interdisciplinary approach, and often displaying subtle influences from his Irish cultural heritage. Recent collections, ‘Totem’ (AW14) and ‘Commune’ (SS15), are both lively and rigorous in sentiment, drawing on notions of the primal and ancient, and contemporary spirituality – with attention to detail in the form of hand-sculpted neckpieces that evoke the animalistic, or intricate hand-beading the recalls forest moss or other organic matter intimately connected to nature.
RCA Fashion Head of Programme for Menswear and Womenswear, Zowie Broach says: ‘I am thrilled to have such a significant contribution to the Fashion Programme student body from Kildare Village, to support creative talent from Ireland. As the world’s number one university of art and design, the RCA nurtures designers from across the world, including Ireland. The Kildare Village Fashion Bursary enables talent from Ireland to follow in the footsteps of towering RCA graduates such as Orla Kiely, Aoife Ni Chofaigh (Ted Baker), as well as Christopher Bailey (Burberry), Erdem, Daniel Kearns (Yves Saint Laurent) and rising stars such as Danielle Romeril.’
See more information about Fashion Menswear and Womenswear, including how to Apply.