Profile
Mary is an alumni of Limerick School of Art & Design, Ireland and holds a B.A. (Hons) in Fashion Design with a Distinction in the first year. Her postgraduate with the Irish Crafts Council 'Shima CAD/CAM Knitwear for Industry' course was the first of its kind, is now recognised as an MA, and saw her awarded Knitwear Designer of the Year in 1996. Her collection celebrating technology in knitwear, securing immediate roles developing knit on Shima industrial machines in Ireland and the UK. This quickly led to her role as Technical Designer at the UK brand Paul Smith. There she developed knitwear and jerseywear on his Mainline catwalk collection for UK and International customers for over 11years.
Mary has over 25 years in the fashion knitwear industry, covering design, technical, retail and brand development and has created knitwear collections for brands such as Wolsey, Private White, Nick Ashley, Peter Werth; with contemporary handknitting and swatch collections in New York and UK. She has produced in a complete vertical set up - from yarn selection through to swatching, prototyping and sampling, to final production, liaising with suppliers around the world. Her speciality is creating knitwear on the most current computerised industrial machinery and the utilisation of CAD software through mindful design and yarn selection, to achieve commercial viability.
Her retail projects include the award winning 'Made in Nottingham Design Store' concept - bringing new and emerging design brands to market through mentoring designers and bringing sales and kudos to their brands. This project, with support from and commitment to the Creative Quarter regeneration in Nottingham city in 2014-18, created employment for three stores, market exposure for over 60 brand/designers, gained the title “High Street Hero” at the Small Awards 2016 and resulted in an invite to Downing Street to celebrate the project's achievement of place on the Small Business UK Top100 list in that year.
Her most recent work has been as Design Mentor at the Museum of Making in Derby on their current sustainability project for schools and colleges, embracing Human Centred Design through product development.