Institute of Art Design + Technology Dún Laoghaire
Ireland’s campus for the Creative Industries

Aoife O’Callaghan 

BA [Hons] Design for Stage + Screen Costume Design

Aoife O’Callaghan is a costume designer and maker. She started sewing at age 14 and her interest in making clothing inspired her to come study in IADT’s Design for Stage and Screen Course. She enjoys bringing characters to life through costume and working with different fabrics to create interesting shapes and textures. For her major project she decided to design for the film “The Red Shoes” (1948).

The Red Shoes

The Red Shoes follows the story of Victoria Page, a young, ambitious dancer who catches the attention of the head of an esteemed ballet company run by Boris Lermentov. He recruits Vicky to the company and gives her the chance to fufill her lifes ambition by becoming the lead dancer in the premiere of the company’s new ballet the Red Shoes, composed by a young and up in coming composer Julien Craster. However when Julien and Vicky fall in love she is forced to choose between her love and her passion for dance which puts her in an impossible situation. I focused on design for movement and took inspiration from the 1970's when designing this piece.



Space Age Fashion and the representation of women in 1960s Science Fiction film and television

This thesis explores the roots of how we perceive that women of the future will be dressed came to be. I explore the history of futuristic fashion design by looking at the Space Age Fashion trend of the 1960s and the precursors to the movement. Within this movement I look beyond the visual attributes of the clothing but also at how this aesthetic looked at the roles women were set to play in a futuristic society. From there I explored how this influenced science fiction design of women of the 1960’s in television and film, using the examples of Star Trek:The Original Series (1966-9), Barbarella (1968) and 2001 A Space Odyssey (1968) .