Costume Design graduate Oran O’Reilly recently sat down with Dr Siobhán O’Gorman, Head of Design & Visual Arts at IADT, for a wide-ranging conversation about his creative journey. From collaborating with incredible musical talents like CMAT and Chappell Roan to drawing inspiration from the silver screen, Oran shared insights into his design process, the influence of film on his work, and his advice for aspiring costume designers looking to break into the industry.

Oran achieved significant media attention during his studies – designing looks for celebrities from Siobhán McSweeney to Bailey J. Mills to Chappell Roan. Star interest in his work all started when he made a corset for fellow costume student Chloe Oppermann featuring the face of film and TV star Natasha Lyonne. Oran posted a photo of the garment on Instagram, tagging Lyonne who shared it to her stories. Interest in Oran’s work snowballed from there, while he continued to thrive on the Costume Design strand of Design for Film, under the expert tutelage of lecturers such as Pamela Heaney and Peter O’Brien.

More recently, Oran was the tailor for Addison Rae’s debut concert tour, designed the dress featured on the cover of CMAT’s upcoming album EURO-COUNTRY, and made Siobhan McSweeney’s cape for RTÉ One’s The Traitors. Below, is a conversation between Oran and Dr Siobhán O’Gorman, Head of Design & Visual Arts at IADT.

Siobhán: Firstly, I’d like to congratulate you on your achievements whilst completing your BA – having had a collection in the Dublin fashion boutique, Om Diva, and featuring in Vogue by Spring 2023 when you were only finishing second year! I’m particularly interested, though, in your work with musicians.

Oran: Thank you! It wasn’t long after I got into Vogue that CMAT got in touch, saying ‘I’d love to have you on to make costumes for a tour.’ So, I made a bunch of looks for her, including her look to open for Florence & the Machine in Dublin. Then I made her look for the ‘Stay for Something’ music video. In December 2023, I worked with band The Last Dinner Party for the first time, when they were supporting Hozier on tour. It’s crazy because these are all people that I really love and I listen to.

Siobhán: Is there something there about the affinity between music and design? Different compositions speaking to each other – the musical, the visual, and the material. These are all people whose work you really love and obviously your work really speaks to them too.

Oran: Yeah. Like, when I was working with CMAT, I would just listen to CMAT’s album on repeat while I was sewing because I wanted to sort of ‘tune in’ to her. If there’s a Gothic look that I’m making, I listen to more Gothic music. I like to surround myself with whatever I’m working with. I also watch movies just to get to the kind of vibe I’m after. So, a lot of what I make are references to certain things, whether it’s a historical silhouette or a movie or whatever.

Siobhán: What kinds of movies inspire you?

Oran: I am a big, big, old Hollywood fan. Growing up, old black and white Hollywood movies were my favourite kinds to watch. But I find that a lot of my work now is often inspired by what I’d call the ‘weird girls’ of cinema.

Siobhán: Any examples?

Oran: I love low budget, quirky movies from the 1960s, 70s and 80s such as They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (1969), Grey Gardens (1975), and Carrie (1976). I also like The Piano Teacher (2001). One of my favourite movies is Possession (1981). I got the main character who’s played by Isabelle Adjani printed on denim, and I set this onto a dress inspired by the dress she was wearing in the film. This was then worn by Abigail Morris, the vocalist from The Last Dinner Party. So, you have Abigail wearing a dress like the one from Possession and wearing Isabelle Adjani wearing the dress, if that makes sense. It’s a very ‘meta’ thing.

Siobhán: There’s a kind of ghostliness to this as well. Historical movie actors in costume ghosting current performers in costume. Like you said, it’s meta, but it’s also kind of reactivating the past through the present in the live performance of the wearer of the garment.

Oran: Exactly. Abigail also referenced the subway scene in Possession by trashing around onstage as if possessed – like Adjani in the movie. In Possession, the scene gets quite gory, with blood and goo coming from the character. This was suggested by red chiffon for Abigail’s costume, and when she spun, it looked like blood. The performance tapped into the film’s themes of sexuality and religion, but also femininity in a wider way.

Siobhán: How did you approach your work with Chappell Roan?

Oran: Roan’s stylist sent a bunch of ideas and said pick the one you want to focus on. They had references but these weren’t very specific. One was to John Waters’ Pink Flamingos (1972). That’s the one I chose, but I made it more specific to the drag queen Divine, who starred in the film and wore a red neoprene dress with a dramatic tulle fishtail. It wasn’t just about creating a dress like this for Chappell; I was recreating the hourglass image of Divine wearing the dress in the movie.

Siobhán: That look got a lot of traction on social media.

Oran: Yeah, everyone loved it. I didn’t understand that I was kind of at the start of something. I was kind of like, is this my big break? It’s just a dress. And to see it as ‘just a dress’ was quite comforting in a way. I think a look like this becomes iconic because of the person wearing it, or where they’re wearing it, or why they’re wearing it. Seeing Chappell in that dress become a meme on Twitter and stuff was crazy to me. At the same time, I was so honoured to have made something interesting enough for people to talk about.

Siobhán: Social media seems to have played a huge role in terms of how your career has taken off as a designer?

Oran: Yeah, it’s crazy. Like most opportunities I’ve gotten have snowballed from social media, which is amazing. Like, it starts off with people following each other, and then people reach out with something like: ‘Oh, I love your stuff. Would you have an outfit for this show or this tour?’ It usually starts on Instagram, then goes on to either e-mail or WhatsApp or whatever. It’s an amazing platform and I’m so grateful that I’ve been able to use it in such a positive way. But I rarely check comments because it stresses me. So, I also try to limit the time I spend on Instagram and how I use it. I just do a post or a story and then get off because to me it is business at the end of the day.

Siobhán: That’s really good advice for anyone using social media for work, actually, because it can be quite addictive and very hard to detox from these platforms.

Oran: Yeah. After you post a job, there’s the excitement of seeing those ‘likes’ go up because you feel ‘my work means something.’ The monkey brain is like ‘oh, I’m getting “like” notifications,’ saying this is how much my art is worth in people’s eyes on this app. It’s important not to get too sucked into all that.

Siobhán: There’s a performance of ‘self’ on social media too, that we can also see in the relationship between costume, fashion and how people dress in different contexts. How do you see these practices intersecting?

Oran: This is probably such an ‘Art School’ take, but I truly believe that everyone’s wearing a costume every day. Like if you say, ‘oh, I’m not; I don’t care about fashion; I just throw on whatever,’ then you’re wearing a costume of somebody who doesn’t care about fashion.

Siobhán: I agree! But what about when you’re designing a collection versus dressing Chappell Roan for live performance or CMAT for a music video?

Oran: So, I think when it comes to fashion, I’m more like, OK, what are people actually gonna wear? I’m like, I’d love to do this crazy thing or that crazy thing, but I need to consider what will sell. It needs to be interesting, exciting, something I’m proud of and something that isn’t available anywhere else, but also what somebody is going to be able to wear that’s not too theatrical, or whatever, for everyday use.

Siobhán: So, it’s different from designing costumes for music videos or the stage?

Oran: Yes, for music artists onstage, for example, you can give performers access to the most extreme versions of themselves. Whenever I work with a band, I always think about what is their art doing? What is it saying and how can I show that if you just looked at a photo from the concert? How could you listen to their music without listening to it?

Siobhán: That’s really interesting in terms how those blurred lines manifest when it comes to dressing celebrities because you’re dressing people as themselves, but sort of heightened versions of themselves.

Oran: And it’s funny when it comes to people with such cult followings, like Last Dinner Party. I was with them for two days, almost observing everything and taking in their world, and their fans often dress like them. Not necessarily as them, but in a similar style that I don’t think they’d wear every day. It’s kind of that ‘Florence & the Machine’ vibe. Which is why I feel like I owe it to the audience to have something interesting to look at while the band’s on stage. And Chappell Roan sets a dress-up theme for the audience for the shows she does, like Pink Pony Club. Everyone in the audience is dressed amazingly. Like, it’s often not just somebody wearing a pink T-shirt. They’re wearing sequins. They make their own clothes.

Siobhán: The audience is performing as well, of course! I see what you mean about feeling you owe something to the fans when they have also made such an effort.

Oran: Yeah, when you’re dressing Chappell herself, it’s like you need to make sure that she is the star, and she is looked at because you need that visual interest.

Siobhán: You have to make her stand out amid all the costumes in the crowd. To take us in a different direction, in interviews you’ve done about your work, you come across as quite a socially-conscious designer. Would that term accurately describe you?

Oran: I always try to use upcycled fabrics or second-hand fabrics. Like, when I worked with The Last Dinner Party, I had them in bed sheets, curtains – as much as possible was upcycled or recycled. Sometimes, I use a printing house in Italy but they offset their carbon emissions. So, I try, and I am trying. I want to avoid helping to ruin the planet for a dress. And then in terms of sizing, it frustrates me so much that a lot of fashion designers, especially young fashion designers, only make a certain size. I see graduate fashion collections and the women’s clothes are rarely above a size 10. But that’s like a mannequin size 10, which is actually a size 8. A collection I did for Om Diva had knit dresses that went up to size 22.

Siobhán: Is there something in this about the difference between studying fashion and studying costume?

Oran: I think so. That’s what’s beautiful about costume design. Broadly speaking, the difference between fashion design and costume design is that fashion is for mass production and costume design is tailored for more specific measurements. In the costume designs for the (Royal Irish Academy of Music) opera that we worked on as part of our course, we got specific measurements no matter what size the performers were, and we had to draft the patterns for those costumes.

Siobhán: Finally, have you any advice for upcoming costume students?

Oran: My friend and fellow costume design student David Walsh once said to me: ‘Oran, somehow you’re able to bring yourself to every project but still complete the brief.’ If you bring references to the films you love, the designers you love, but stay true to yourself, you can always make it fun and exciting. Like, truly do what you know without trying to emulate anybody else. I think that’s where magic happens. And seeing other people around you do that too – I think it’s just beautiful.

Visit Oran’s graduate exhibition HERE