Ronan Flanagan: A True Designer
Scottish designer Ronan Flanagan ruminates on the experience of the young creative today, craftsmanship and the climate
The fashion industry is an increasingly precarious place for a young person. It is not only increasingly difficult to permeate, no matter one's skill, it is also fueling the death of our planet. These are issues that resonate heavily with 30-year-old fashion designer Ronan Flanagan. Graduating from Central Saint Martins in 2023, Flanagan is yet to secure a “proper” job. When I ask him about the life of a young creative in London today, Flanagan’s response is- like his outfit: a fitted white t-shirt, black jeans and slippers- austere. “Difficult. Sometimes a bit demoralising,” he says. Flanagan was not always destined for fashion, per say. He began his higher education as a student of chemical engineering but found this did not match his temerity for creativity. Coming of age in the time of Esquire, Hypebeast and HighSnobiety, he found himself drawn towards the sartorial instead. Constructing his portfolio at Glasgow School of Art, he attained his BA in Fashion Design at Kingston School of Art and his MA at Central Saint Martins. That rationality required for engineering has never left Flanagan, though. “’How do I do this?’ ‘How do I solve problems?’ I think that sort of technical approach comes from that more scientific background...” He explains, “It’s more just how my brain approaches an idea or a problem.” Perhaps it’s this straight-thinking way of designing that makes Flanagan’s surprising contravention of the ‘rules’ of tailoring all the more exciting.
"Finding perfection within imperfection.” This is how Flanagan describes his eye. To explain what “imperfection” means to him, the Scottish-Irish designer removes a seemingly average blue striped Oxford shirt from the living room door. “In this, I cut without a pattern. It was essentially getting a bit of fabric and... cutting what you see as the shape of a shirt but not making any measurements, not matching up seams...” Flanagan says, “That leads to things not fitting properly, you get gaps, you get distorted pieces.” It is at CSM that Flanagan found the gumption to take such risks in his design. Working previously with master tailor John Skelton and at Antwerp-based pattern cutting house Trois-Quarts, Flanagan is well-versed in what he calls “dead straight menswear.” However, at CSM, there wasn’t the physical time for super-pedantry and he has strongly leaned into this conflict of tradition and subversion ever since. “He took steps to soften and unarm the strictness of the rules of tailoring during his MA which,” describes fashion designer and CSM MA Fashion tutor Louise Gray, “I think brought real uniqueness to the final pieces.”
This isn’t to say that Flanagan has lost all of his ultra-perfectionism. In the corner of his living room being beamed by light through his Victorian Camden window stands a suit on a mannequin, two sleeves hanging over the left shoulder. Flanagan began this in his final year at Kingston during a bespoke tailoring course and included it in his BA graduate collection. Although, it isn’t actually complete. “The sleeves weren’t quite right, so I took them off and redid them and they still weren’t right,” chronicles Flanagan. He assures me that one day he’ll finish it, though that date is very much unspecified.
Flanagan’s label, Gould Studios, takes its name from the designer’s biggest inspiration and a pioneer of the perfect/imperfect in the 20th century, Canadian pianist Glenn Gould. Renowned for his eccentricities, including an over-sensitivity to the cold and a need to sit 14 inches off the ground when playing, Gould took infamous control over his projects and, like the designer, was laser-focussed on technique. I wonder if Flanagan has any Gould-esque eccentricities of his own? “I try not to take myself too seriously.” He says, “I take my work very seriously and I want it to be taken seriously but I don’t take myself too seriously.” It’s a sobering statement to hear the day after London Fashion Week, when I conduct our interview. Fashion can often contain itself in a bubble of glamour and it is still- in 2024- refreshing to hear a designer renounce this. Flanagan likes his work to speak for itself and to speak for his dedication to method above all. “I think giving yourself up to your craft is really interesting to me,” he remarks, expressing further admiration for Gould. The Canadian pianist and the Aberdeen-born designer have operated within rigid corners of their respective industries, and it is how they “throw the rulebook out the window”, as Flanagan puts it, that is so enticing.
Along with this rule-breaking energy, Gould Studios is rooted in a “buy less, wear more” ethos. According to the Global Fashion Agenda, by 2030, humans are expected to produce up to 134 million tons of textile waste per year. We all know the damage of the fast fashion system and we all participate in it. Young designers, like Ronan Flanagan, who are devoted to rethinking how we consume, may just be the desperately needed antidote. “I’d much rather buy one thing and really love it and wear it to death than buy ten things for the same price,” he expounds, “you just have to buy things, love them, care about them.” This is a growing notion in the London menswear scene, with brands like Edeline Lee, Form & Thread (where Flanagan works part-time) and Blackhorse Road Ateliers discussing similar themes through their work.
It is tough to rival the “buy more, wear less” ethos of the fast fashion giants- Fashion Nova, Shein, Boohoo, for example- and especially so in the midst of the deepest cost-of-living crisis in decades (which Flanagan cites as his biggest challenge). London is not what it once was, and it is difficult to hit the ground running in today’s creative industries. However, it isn’t all doom and gloom. Flanagan holds his London community very close, saying “it’s nice that there’s always this mutual appreciation between everyone because we’ve all been through the same thing.”
So where next for Ronan Flanagan, at the dawn of his thirties? Well, he’s not entirely sure either. “I’m sort of in that transient period, trying to do freelance, trying to do a proper job.” He says, “The first thing that comes along I’ll see where it takes me.” An honest reflection on the realities of post-graduate life in fashion. No matter what, it’s clear that Flanagan will stick to his guns. “I still want to maintain the craft and identity... Not just being an interchangeable little wheel in a big machine.”