J W Anderson makes Ireland proud and scoops a major new job!

I don't mean to come over all 'Irish' on you but....It does annoy me when Irish designers are referred to as English. Not because I am one of those people who believes that anyone who has vaguely set foot in Ireland should be considered Irish but because Irish designers are leaving the country in droves and we need to advertise our young talent if we want to keep our industry alive.

So it was with great displeasure that I noted that J W Anderson was described by many blogs, magazines and news sites as English today following the wonderful news that he will be taking over from Christopher Kane at Versus.

Versus is the younger edgier version of Versace by the way!

This is a great moment for any designer but its pretty epic when you consider how many designers we have to boast about. This is huge! Not to mention his sell out collection with Topshop and the media scrum that created earlier this year. The man is on fire!

But could the media be a bit more savvy please and not label him English?

This does raise a really interesting point actually! Anderson is from Northern Ireland and while it riles me to see him described as English, he would be perfectly entitled to do so if he wanted to. However, he has spoken about Ireland its influence in his designs before and if he indentifies as Irish - does that make it right for him to be labelled another way? Oh its confusing!

Either way, I find it interesting that the Irish Independent refers to him as Irish every chance they get - especially when he wins awards!

I really wish him the best of Irish/British luck as someone else who is neither English or Irish but some weird hybrid of both.......(incase anyone is wondering a weird hybrid of the two means you have English manners but an Irish ability to drink)