Patrick Garvey

Crystalline, BA Fashion (Knit), Runner Up, 2024

My final collection, inspired by Catholic guilt and Rococo imagery from my Irish upbringing and time as an altar boy, merging traditional Catholicism with modern spirituality. Utilising a unique crystallisation process developed over two years, I create ‘embroidered’ knits that symbolise a new spiritual connection through crystals.

My final collection draws inspiration from my personal experiences with Catholic guilt incorporating Catholic and Rococo imagery that I was surrounded by as a child and my teens with my experiences as an altar boy and coming from an Irish family. The goal is to reinvent this imagery and use it as a source of inspiration to create a collection that explores spirituality and religion from a personal point of view merging both Catholicism and modern-day forms of spirituality such as crystals to create a collection.

To achieve this, I developed a unique process of crystallisation using a scientific process to create crystals that only grow on specific knit structures, which I use to create ‘embroidered’ knits and garments. These garments represent a new form of spirituality that revolves around crystals as a source of connection to the divine. This textile process is something I’ve spent two years developing using a process of crystallisation that fuses with knit structures.

The concept of holy water, which is traditionally used to prepare oneself for religious ceremonies, serves as inspiration for the textiles in this collection. I use the process of crystallisation to create textiles that metaphorically prepare individuals for a spiritual experience. With the process of creating these crystals mimicking a baptism with both the person or the samples being submerged in holy water in preparation.

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