Richard Lewis
One of Ireland’s last couturiers and practitioner of bespoke fashion, writes Fashion Editor Constance Harris
RICHARD Lewis, Ireland’s truly most elegant of dress designers, died last week aged 73. He is survived by his sister, Mary. My predecessor, the late, Terry Keane, who was extremely discerning about quality, wrote in this paper that if her house was burning down, she would rescue her blue Richard Lewis dress. Such was the devotion Richard’s work always inspired.
Born in Drimnagh, Dublin, Richard grew up in the clothing industry; his mother and her sisters, produced school uniforms and nuns’ habits. Richard hated school, but he loved drawing women in dresses. He attended the Grafton Academy in 1963, graduating in 1965, and immediately opened his first shop on Baggot Street. Later, he moved his salon to South Frederick Street and stayed there until his retirement in 2016. He was inspired by two of the greats of the 1960s British fashion scene: Jean Muir and Ossie Clarke.
The mid 1970s were when Richard Lewis found his design stride. Several things came together for him. He discovered matt jersey, the fabric that was to become his signature and the foundation to his timelessly-elegant, colour-block focused, feminine creations. Fashion in Ireland was finally freeing itself of its 1950s-depression heritage with designers such as Ib Jorgensen, Paul Costelloe and later, Michael Mortell, making waves and making real news.
Peter Mark, a new hair salon on Grafton Street in the 1960s, started to expand and be a creative force on the fashion scene, thus Richard embarked on a life-long fashion relationship with them and their hair creatives, including Gary Kavanagh, Michael Leong and Michael Doyle. Richard met a 17-year-old model, Sharon Bacon, who became his life-long muse.
And he met his life-time partner, Jim Greeley.
In the mid 1990s, when I was a young fashion stylist and the nature of the work was not understood nor respected, Richard Lewis was one of the few people who welcomed me when I streeled in the door, dressed in jeans and sweater, to borrow divine white jersey trousers suits and elegant evening gowns.
Before Richard could get two sentences out, Jim would be out of the workroom and by his side, gossiping and interrogating me as to all ‘the news’ in the fashion scene, mutual friends, all the while puffing on a cigarette. As Jim would take over, Richard would look indulgently at him, loving him totally.
One day, I asked Richard how he and Jim met; this was long before being ‘gay’ became a norm in Ireland. Richard told me he was volunteering for the Samaritans. They both were. He was 27. He didn’t know he was gay at the time; he didn’t particularly know what ‘gay’ was; he was old fashioned; they were different times. But he met Jim and he knew. Theirs was an enduring love affair that inspired the entire fashion industry and all who met them.
Richard Lewis’s salon was always friendly and unassuming. It was something I always tried to convey when I wrote about him. He never judged people. Truly. He was the least judgemental man I have ever met. He loved his ladies, the clients who were devotedly loyal to him throughout his career such as Mary Finan and Tona O’Brien. Richard Lewis just wanted to make dresses, be with Jim and have fun.
Richard Lewis’s work was inspired by the cut and drape of the sensuous 1930s. He was a designer who loved women’s curvy bodies. His models were always beautiful women and he especially loved to use black or Latin models, if he could find them. He made women feel like goddesses and he made men appreciate that quality in their women. I always noticed that Richard Lewis’s shows were the most attended by men — because men liked what he did for women. Richard Lewis was all soft lines.
Richard appreciated design and skill in others. He loved to see young people succeed and always, he would attempt to embrace new technology. I used to have hilarious exchanges with him and Jim as they struggled with some new fad, such as websites. When video came in, Richard met a young videographer called Karl Hayden. Thereafter, Karl became an essential component of the ‘Richard Lewis set up’ and a loyal comrade. Up to his death, Richard was using LinkedIn to message people.
Richard loved to love people. He adored Catherine Condell’s styling. He loved Aisling Eyre and Paula Callan’s make-up. Peter O’Brien’s skill and friendship. In the 1990s, Richard collaborated with Bernadette Madden, the batik artist. In the noughties, he loved Paula Rowan’s leather gloves and used them in his shows. He greatly enjoyed his knitwear collaboration with St Finian’s Development Group in Finglas through Miriam Gogarty.
He and Jim were regulars in Jenny Vander and Dublin antiques houses, seeking out art deco pieces and designs from the 1920s and 30s.
Despite his 50-year career, Richard’s was not one full of awards. But in 1988, the first year of the prestigious Satzenbrau fashion awards, he was named Best Designer. When Maureen O’Hara received her IFTA Lifetime achievement Award, it was to Richard she went.
In 2014, Richard Lewis was celebrated for his 50 years in the industry with a fashion show organised by Eddie Shanahan, a life-long friend and colleague, and Brown Thomas CREATE honoured him with a display presentation. He was delighted with it all and the subsequent re-interest in his work and career.
But Richard never got over the death of his true love. In 2006, Jim suffered a massive heart attack not far from their salon. He was on his way back from the travel agent, in his pocket were tickets for a trip to Milan to see the opera at La Scala, a long-held dream of theirs and to be a surprise for Richard.
That day, Richard lost his heart. In an extraordinary act of courage, three months later, Richard honoured Jim’s work and delivered the most beautiful and rich collection of his career.
And though he suffered immensely in the immediate years, Richard found some solace in his creativity and his friendships.
Richard Lewis loved and appreciated all of the fashion industry and his friends’ support and efforts. But, nothing, nothing compared to Jim.
I feel Richard would have loved that his life and death is being discussed via our current ‘new technology’ — social media.
Consistent in all the comments is sincere and simple appreciation of Richard Lewis, his life’s work and kindness, and the heartfelt wish that he is reunited with his one love, Jim Greeley.
I have no doubt.