Designers’ haven and heaven

NEW shops often open to fill a void. While there are countless places to buy tourist souvenirs, Irish craft products and artwork, the growing number of small-scale designers didn’t have a very visible outlet in Galway’s bustling centre.
For just over a year now, designers have been given a showcase studio of their own and the appetite for homegrown fashion talent along with a resurgence in upcycling looks set to ensure the shop’s future, for now at least.
The Galway Designers Studio House started out with ten designers and now features the impressive work of 22 Irish designers working under the fashion banner from coats and hats to bags and jewellery.
The split-level shop at the Cornstore in Galway is also home to a thriving studio and workshop space where regular classes in knitting, sewing and even social media take place. A bright, white and airy space with an impressive wide window onto the street is also a popular exhibition space which is nearly booked out for the rest of the year.
The Galway Designers Studio House was founded by Ann Petrov and Gayle Poppers but is now solely run by Ann, an interior designer and creator who lives with her two children in Kilcoona, in the parish of Caherlistrane, not far from, Headford.

Read the feature in full in this week's edition of The Tuam Herald