Crystals and Catholicism: Patrick Garvey reinvents religion through fashion

“The idea of dunking these garments in liquid, it’s a new means of creating a divine identity,” Patrick Garvey, Central Saint Martins’ 2024  winner of the L’Oréal Professionel young talent award, explains. With a unique crystallisation process that allows crystals to grow across his intricate knitted garments, Garvey’s collection was shown this week alongside 40 of his fellow CSM graduate designers; and was hailed as the stand out.

Namely Crystalline, Garvey’s collection takes its shape around his religious upbringing, seeking to reclaim the ritualistic elements that manifest within religion. Learning more about his identity and gaining firsthand world experiences taught Garvey to take religion with a pinch of salt (or a pinch of crystal salt, per se). As he puts it, “I don’t know if I believe in the ideologies behind the Catholic church and the God they speak about,” he says. “I think there is some sort of higher power and that’s why I’m exploring different forms of spirituality in my collection.”

Garvey was born in Liverpool, and despite his prominent Scouse accent suggesting otherwise, he and his family quickly moved to Germany and later Portugal:”‘I’d feel bad saying my favourite place living in wasn’t Liverpool,” he jokes. He attended the Catholic boys’ school, St Julian’s, where he laments on childhood stories to me, describing religious figurines that his grandmother decorated her house with, or the architecture that ornamented St Julian’s. It’s “these anecdotes, these imageries, that I’ve been inspired by my whole childhood,” he notes. “They bring my collection together, and translate the mixture of these memories into one collection of ideas.”

Using the spiritual connotations surrounding crystals to act as a motif in rejuvenating a new, modern sense of religion, Patrick by no means sticks to the “traditional” sense of Catholicism. As he puts it best, when I ask him how he’d define his creative identity, he quickly remarks “Pink”’ Think Met Gala 2018, Heavenly Bodies: injected with vibrant pinks, blues, and greens, his garments still retain Garvey’s maximalist designing DNA. Neon hues are met with a thawing, frosty wash from the crystals, which comes from a liquid solution that’s never been featured in a knit garment before. 

“It’s a scientific process that only grows on certain types of knitwear, so the composition of the yarn I’m using will really impact how the crystals grow,’ he explains. Garvey ordered the crystal solution in bulk, and as crates of it piled outside of the pub adjacent to his Camden flat, he inadvertently caused a national shortage of the solution (he’s nothing if not committed.)

Beginning by dipping each pattern piece in the ‘holy water’ AKA the liquid solution, Garvey then leaves the panels to sit overnight; and lets science do its thing. He’s left with a beautifully crystallised, and probably about five pounds heavier (quite literally, one garment weighs around 20 kilograms), piece of knitting. After this, as if an archaeologist who’s discovered an old fossil, he dries the garment to brush off any excess dust from the crystals. The result is a subliminally organic creation – “these crystals look frozen, like a veil is almost being lifted over this ideology of Catholicism, like it’s defrosted,” he says.

“If you think about dreams there’s always a tint or shimmer over them… that’s what I’m trying to evoke through the designs” – Patrick Garvey

“I don’t live a very Catholic lifestyle and I’ve had all of these ideas in me for a while, but it’s been released in this collection, it’s like it’s been frozen in me but now it's melting and thawing out.” You can control how big the crystals will grow, and where they will congregate, through the choice of yarn, Garvey explains. Drier yarns like linen work well, as they can soak up the majority of the liquid, meaning the crystals will be bigger. Like that of an ancient fossil that’s been unearthed from a cave – something that only nature could produce – Patrick has managed to concoct this amalgamation of man-made and nature; almost like a living organism.

Each of Garvey’s six garments takes reference from a different biblical figure: Cardinal, Nun, and Angel, to name a few. “The garments are almost like individuals, that’s why they’ve each got their own name,” he says. Effectively adopting their own lives and identities, Garvey wants his collection “to embody a ceremonial experience for the audience.” As he puts it, Crystalline “almost feels dreamy to look back on. If you think about dreams there’s always a tint or shimmer over them,” he notes, “that’s what I’m trying to evoke through the designs.”

Garvey knew of Central Saint Martins since childhood, recounting searching up the University at no more than seven years old to me. He first came to Central Saint Martins with no knitting experience, applying for the knitwear pathway "because as a designer I always focused on the textile before the silhouette, that 3D element in what I was making," he mentions, "I think it’s really interesting that I’m making my fabrics, whereas other pathways aren’t doing that." He went onto spend his placement year in New York, interning with Oscar de la Renta, Thom Browne, and Tom Ford. "Going somewhere else,’ he explains, was one of his highlights at Saint Martins: ‘meeting all of these interesting people and learning how it works in the industry, I’m trying to apply the way they work to my own process now."

For Garvey, though, it’s the freedom that tops off his experience at Central Saint Martins. “I don’t know if I would be able to make the same type of clothes elsewhere, or even know about these ideas anywhere else,” he says. “That level of freedom has really allowed me to develop as a designer.”

The models swayed down the runway, as if unearthed from the ground, to a hyper-pop meets religious hymn music mixed by Patrick himself. The music climaxed into a fluttering melody sung by the Organ, to which the final look (the Holy Water), was revealed. The models’ hair was so wet it was stuck to their gloss-ridden faces, they picture a moment frozen in time. After the show, a glassy-eyed Garvey immediately ran off to call his parents to break the news of his award to them.