OH JOANNE!
Irish designer Joanne Hynes’s creations are always playful, colourful and eclectic, and her brilliant new Spring Summer collection entitled Oh Diane! is a tribute to American photographer Diane Arbus
For Irish designer Joanne Hynes, the past is often her beginning. The power of remembering and reimagining stories of historical women, past heroines and favourite muses is a recurring theme in her work.
For her new Spring Summer 2024 range titled Oh Diane! the Galway designer draws inspiration from acclaimed American photographer, Diane Arbus. Arbus was a creative maverick who lived from 1923 to 1971 and is known for her images of perceived outsiders such as carnival entertainers, nudists, drag performers and little people. Her unique, complex, unsettling and sensitive portraits have been a creative stimulus for Hynes since she started designing in 1999.
She says the new collection celebrates ‘the mystery, nuance and play of fashion’, but ‘is not simply designed for one kind of woman’ rather ‘for many different types of creative and complex women.’
Hynes’s partnership with Dunnes Stores, which launched in September 2016, has developed a very loyal fan-base, allowing her to share her unique aesthetic and point of view with a wider audience. The compact yet statement-making collection features leather separates, print dresses, textured knits, a slogan shirt, and a range of handbag styles — all with her inimitable sense of quirky originality and talent for gleefully clashing colours, prints and influences.
The three new dresses at the collection’s centre are designed to double as clever coats and provide playful layering solutions for versatility in the face of volatile Irish spring weather. Two striking surrealist appliqué hand motifs are rendered and stitched with sequin embroidery materials. This hand motif appears again as an appliqued crochet lace glove on another structured mini dress with a strong collar (€150).
Hynes is known for her brave use of print and a notable one featured is the designer’s own Margie Muse painting, a loving nod to every complicated woman searching for self-expression. The Margie print also appears on a colourful cross-body bag (€60) and a multi-hued pastel lace print trench coat (€180). A structured jersey dress with a statement puff ball sleeve playfully features the print at the back instead of the front (€120) to add an unexpected element of surprise.
Surrealism has been a notable trend in international collections recently and Hynes uses trompe-l’oeil accessories such as signature necklaces from her archive, printed on to blouses to tap into the trend.
Cute retro 1960s inspired knit silhouettes are reimagined with unusual, crystalised chevron panelling and pointelle stitch, lace techniques as on a zip-up knit dress/coatigan (€150) and tunic top. Star buys include a boxy pale blue leather suit (with a trench style jacket €280 and co-ordinating culottes €200). It is in a gorgeous, dreamy shade and could be the central lynchpin for multiple looks as shown in the creatively styled campaign.
The Oh Diane! styles deliver bright colours, embellishment, unusual juxtapositions of prints and fabrics as well as typical slogans such as Mná on a vintage style frame bag. There are other bag styles, including the Boudoir
Sketchbook bag and the printed Margie pouch bag, both €60. As always, stock is limited so those with an eye on an item should act quickly to secure their favourite. The
Oh Diane! Collection is available online now at dunnesstores.com and in store at Dunnes
Stores in Stephen’s Green (Dublin), Dundrum (Dublin), and Bandon Road (Cork).