Sonya Lennon

And I left school, went to Loretta on the Green in 1986.

I was my leaving year and that was the year of the fire that tragically killed six nuns.

And a lesser side effect of that was that the art room burnt down and all of our portfolios were gone.

So I couldn't apply to art college.

So I just said, I kind of thumbed my nose at it and I said, I'm going to work in luxury fashion retail.

And that's what I did.

That's what you did.

Yeah, I did that for a few years.

I worked with really avant-garde stores like Vivian Walsh's Camouflage, which was on Dawson Street where Marco Pierre White's is now, and Forenze that was at the base of the Westbury Hotel.

It was the time when

There was a store called Tokyo on South End Street.

It was very, very early doors, international collections, very avant-garde, way ahead of its time, those founders of those stores.

But I absolutely loved it.

And then I discovered styling and I thought, wow, this is an opportunity to paint something

pictures with clothes and that felt really potent to me So you became a personal stylist then?

No not at all a commercial fashion stylist so I would work on fashion campaigns or music videos or TV commercials and travel around the world doing gorgeous work and painting pictures with clothes and coming together like a circus creating a campaign and then moving on so I was a freelance fashion stylist It was fabulous Sounds like a lovely life It was so much fun Especially at that stage of your life

Yeah, and it was Dublin in the 90s, which was pretty much like the funnest thing you could possibly imagine.

So like flying on private jets to music festivals with bands and backstage and guerrilla gigs with David Bowie and all that kind of stuff.

It was amazing.

Living the dream.