Style notes: A peek inside Panti’s sustainable wardrobe, silk snugs and explore Irish fashion history on culture night

Our fashion editor rounds up the latest style news and fashion trends

Rory O’Neill, aka Panti Bliss, is supporting Oxfam Ireland’s ‘Second Hand September’ campaign. Picture: Brian McEvoy

Hope Macaulay AW23. Pic by Beth Macaulay

A snug from Niamh Gillespie's Elemental Collection

Lustrous padded silk snug in ‘First Frost’ print, €285, tidings.ie

Rory O'Neill showing off items from Panti's wardrobe. Picture: Brian McEvoy

Lustrous padded silk snug in Niamh Gillespie's 'Alpine Meadow' print, €285, from the new Elemental Collection at tidings.ie

Lustrous padded silk snug in Niamh Gillespie's 'Alpine Meadow' print, €285, from the new Elemental Collection at tidings.ie

Rory O'Neill with his toile de Jouy jacket. Picture: Brian McEvoy

Lustrous padded silk snug in Niamh Gillespie's 'Alpine Meadow' print, €285, from the new Elemental Collection at tidings.ie

Charity shops have a crucial role to play in slowing down fast fashion. Last year, Charity Retail Ireland members diverted 17,300 tonnes away from landfill or waste to energy — this is the equivalent of 1,440 double-decker buses of textiles prevented from leaking toxins into our soil, water and air.

Oxfam Ireland is part of that group and next week it launches its fifth ‘Second Hand September’ campaign to champion pre-loved fashion and extend the life of clothes.

This year, the campaign is encouraging people to ‘Dress for the world you want — in clothes that don’t cost the earth’. Elaine White from the charity’s trading team says, “It is a call to dress intentionally, in stylish pre-loved outfits that don’t cost the earth and make a statement about who you are and the kind of world you want.”

Rory O’Neill (aka Panti Bliss) is supporting Oxfam’s campaign and gave us an opportunity to peek inside Panti’s very colourful wardrobe, and one of his maintenance wardrobe tricks — to help lengthen the life of his clothes — might just surprise you.

“Like everybody, 35 years ago, when I started all of this (Panti Bliss), no one really thought about climate change or the impending doom or anything, so I never thought for a moment about what my sequins were made of or where stuff came from. And obviously I’ve become much more conscious of that over the years and tried to avoid stuff that I know is actively harmful to us and the planet. Things have changed and Panti’s clothes have changed with it,” says O’Neill.

Rory O'Neill showing off items from Panti's wardrobe. Picture: Brian McEvoy

“Most of my things are handmade because I am not a regular lady shape that I can buy off the rack, and I don’t like to wash them any more than I have to because that really does shorten their lifespan.

“So, like all good drag queens and theatre professionals, I have a bottle filled with vodka and some essential oils, which I spray on to all of my outfits after I take them off,” he says.

“If you’re doing something in the public eye, people expect you to have a new outfit all the time. I try and keep a rotation going. The other thing is, if you hang on to things long enough, as I have, things come back into fashion. And things that you wouldn’t have thought about wearing 10 years ago, they come back around. Like, I have a lot of houndstooth check because, every 10 years or so, houndstooth becomes super-hot again. So just hang on to them.”

Rory O'Neill with his toile de Jouy jacket. Picture: Brian McEvoy

One of the oldest items in the wardrobe is a blue/white toile de Jouy jacket made for O’Neill for the Alternative Miss Ireland competition in the early 2000s.

“I just love it. It’s really beautiful. It’s sort of above fashion. It’s always cool and it’s beautifully handmade, so I’ve kept that ever since. I keep all of the things really but I really loved that in particular,” says O’Neill.

He donated two bags of goods to Second Hand September, and you’ll find them at the Oxfam Ireland store on South Great George’s Street in Dublin.

For details of competitions you can enter as part of the campaign, go to oxfamireland.org/shs

Niamh Gillespie is launching a new ‘Elemental Collection’ of lustrous padded silk snugs and will be taking pre-orders from next Friday.

Gillespie drew inspiration from the insulation qualities of that winter staple, the puffer coat, and combined the clean-cut outline of a scarf with the versatility of a snood, and the silk snug was born.

A snug from Niamh Gillespie's Elemental Collection

Available in five of Gillespie’s prints, they are made in Ireland using Silcott, which is a combination of silk and cotton, and are padded with insulating eco-filling.

“They have been a long time in the making,” says Gillespie. “We sampled it for the last year to make sure it draped well on the neck and we feel this is the perfect weight of the quilting and the perfect length and width that makes it easy to wear.”

Lustrous padded silk snug in ‘First Frost’ print, €285, tidings.ie

The OTT quilted nylon Moncler coat and scarf worn by Sarah Jessica Parker in And Just Like That when New York gets blanketed with snow got lots of press because of its scene-stealing, impractical beauty. I really like the look and proportions of these luxe-feel, cosy, quilted silk snugs and I do think Gillespie is on to something here. tidings.ie

Drop into the National Museum of Ireland at Collins Barracks on Friday, September 22, from 7-8pm for a public tour of The Way We Wore exhibition and discover the history of clothing and jewellery worn in Ireland from the 1700s to the 1900s.

This social history tour explores the history of clothing in Ireland and what clothing can show us about life in the past. culturenight.ie