Page 16 - Katherine Ryan press pack 2015-20

style ireland 17
Floral
embroidered
dress, €8,900,
BalenCiaGa, from
Harvey nichols.
Glitter heels,
€612, Mary
KatrantZOU X
GiUsePPe ZanOtti

wrapped our exuberant shoot, where she K

atherine Ryan is not at She recalls going into Brown Thomas: worked as a draughtsman for the local
all misty-eyed when it “Irishwomen have a strong sense of council, he went to work for an engineering
comes to her Irish individual fashion. I watched all these pale company in Sarnia. She describes her
roots. “Oh my God, all women trying on fancy hats and fascinators, mother, Julie, who worked in the computer
those insane christening which we didn’t have back home. I got this industry, as “glamorous and outspoken”. At Some people might
and Holy Communion sense of ‘You might not be pretty and tanned 18, Ryan went to Toronto University to study
afterparties,” she says. like the girls in Canada, but you fit in here’.” city planning, but her weekend job in the
Ryan, 33, who will front The younger Ryan was convinced she chain restaurant Hooters, where waitresses think I’m overdressed,
a Channel 4 TV show “wasn’t pretty enough”. But that early memory dress skimpily and are encouraged to flirt,
about self-made million- of Irishwomen wearing whatever they damn changed all that. She noticed that being cute
aires called How Did well pleased spurred her on. When she wasn’t enough; it was the waitresses with “a but not me. I’m dressing
You Get So Rich? in appears on Mock the Week and Have I Got soul and a spirit and charisma who got the
January, has just News for You, she still feels the thrill of most tips. I thought, ‘I don’t need to be pretty. for the little world
rebellion by wearing “beautiful clothes and I just need to be authentic.’”
quipped that she was channelling Liza being unapologetically feminine, while the Her evolving waitress “spirit” led her to
Minnelli in Cabaret. Still in high-energy guys are in shirts and jeans. Girls watching at experiment with stand-up comedy. In 2007 in my head
mode, the comedian jokes about the home need to see those clothes on someone she came to London with her then boyfriend,
drawbacks of being a lightweight drinker in who isn’t on Towie or reality TV — a real a fellow Canadian comedian, and began to
the land of stout and whiskey. “My aunts and woman with opinions.” She loves Mary do open-mic spots, going on to win a series of
uncles in their eighties will bring a karaoke Katrantzou, Peter Pilotto and Orla Kiely. promising newcomer awards. In 2008, the
machine and start singing Danny Boy, and I’ll “Some people might think I’m overdressed, couple had a daughter, Violet, but they split
be, like, ‘Please make it stop.’” but not me. I’m dressing for the little world two years later. The ensuing penury spurred
The whip-smart wasp is only part of I live in in my head.” Ryan on to take her career to the next level.
Katherine Ryan, though. She suddenly drops And a fascinating world it is. Ryan, whose Jimmy Carr gave her a break by offering her a
the comedy routine to reveal she loves role model is Joan Rivers, admits she was a shift on 8 Out of 10 Cats, and her turn as a fat-
Ireland, because it was the first place that “strange child”. For school projects, she suited Nicki Minaj in Let’s Dance for Comic
made her feel good in her (very fair) skin. would dress up her little sisters as historical Relief in 2013 took her to a new high. Last
Coming from Sarnia, an industrial town in characters such as a hip-hop Samuel Taylor year, she even performed on Amy Schumer’s red sequined gown,
Ontario, Canada, where girls were supposed Coleridge or Bessie Smith (complete with tour. She has four Edinburgh Fringe shows €9,950, tOM FOrd.
to “be pretty and gentle and quiet”, she felt blacked-up face). under her belt, and now the Channel 4 show, slingbacks, €525, JiMMy
liberated by the feisty women she saw here. Her father, Barry, left Cork aged 30: having which is based on a format made famous by CHOO, from Brown thomas