Ep. 189: Clodagh on the Twist & Turns of Her Extraordinary Life & Career [encore]

Clever with Amy Devers

In this episode, host Amy Devers interviews the legendary designer Clodagh about her extraordinary journey from the Irish countryside to glo

Key takeaways

• Clodagh opened her first couture salon in Dublin at the age of 17.
• A pivotal horseback riding accident led to a prophecy from a local man that she would become a healer.
• Her design philosophy is rooted in 'making people feel good' through sensory and environmental harmony.
• She utilizes 'dry sponge, wet sponge' methodology to absorb local culture and context for international projects.
• The practice incorporates ancient techniques like feng shui and biogeometry to assess and balance energy in spaces.

Main topics

• Childhood in the West of Ireland
• Fashion design entrepreneurship
• Near-death experiences and spirituality

Notable quotes

I want to make people feel good.

Conclusion

An inspiring testament to how embracing life's unpredictable turns can

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:04) That's the vision and mission I carry on, whether it's your bed, your furniture, the way your door opens and closes. I want to make people feel good. Speaker 2 (0:15) Hi everyone, I'm Amy Devers and this is Clevver. Today I'm talking to the legendary Clodagh. Born in 1940, Clodagh grew up in the Irish countryside in what was once Oscar Wilde's home. She embarked on her first career chapter as a fashion designer when at the young age of 17 she opened a couture salon in Dublin. She jokes that in the 1970s she changed husbands, countries, and careers when... After having three children, achieving global success in the fashion industry, and getting a hard-won divorce, she moved to Spain, remarried, and found her true calling as an interior designer. She moved countries again in the 1980s, setting up her own studio in New York City. Now... Having been a design powerhouse for over five decades, she's completed projects all over the world, including multifamily residences, hotels, spas, yachts, private jets, and more. A renowned pioneer of sustainable and biophilic design, she's always cared most about how her spaces make people feel. And as such, she's earned a reputation for being somewhat of a healer by way of design. And she's been vegan since the 80s. As the subject of two separate documentaries, she's led a remarkable life, full of ups, downs, twists, turns, and near-death experiences. It's a wild ride, full of grit, heart, wisdom, and humor. Here's Clodagh. Speaker 1 (1:55) My name is Clodagh. I live upstate New York and I work in Manhattan. I'm a multifaceted designer, not an interior designer. I design anything that's handed to me to design. That is a special, Speaker 2 (2:12) special talent. Very fluid. So let's talk about how you got to be this multifaceted designer. And to do that, I would love to go all the way back to the formative years. Can you talk to me about your childhood in the west of Ireland? I Speaker 1 (2:27) was born in the west of Ireland, in County Mayo. I brought up in Oscar Wilde's country home, Moitura House, on the banks of Loch Corrib. I had an interesting family. There were actually, in the end, three children. I'm the youngest. From a mother who actually was quite avant-garde in her way because she drove a sports car. One of the first women, actually, to drive in Ireland. She had an art show, and she rode fast horses side saddle in cross-country competitions. This was before I was born. She did all these things. No, by the time I came along, she was actually a very different person. Speaker 2 (3:10) Was her avant-garde spirit an inspiration to you? Speaker 1 (3:14) Well, I didn't know she was avant-garde. until I was much older. Speaker 2 (3:19) She had settled down. She Speaker 1 (3:21) had really settled down, yes. She was very quiet. And my father really did nothing very much at all. He didn't have a job or anything like that. We were basically downwardly mobile, country gentle people. Speaker 2 (3:34) Okay. I don't have a lot of that. I don't have a lot of reference for that in my life. Speaker 1 (3:40) No, most people don't. My father bred dogs. He had what they call a gentleman's farm. We would row out to, on Loch Carrib to an island, have a picnic with a row of dogs swimming behind us with their noses making V's on the water. We had some cows and we had neighbours. And we're near Ashford Castle, which is one of the most beautiful castles in Ireland. We used to go over there sometimes as a huge treat. And then because we were down in Ludley Moble, we changed homes and went to a smaller one in Sligo. That was my first time going to school. Speaker 2 (4:15) In living in Speaker 1 (4:16) Oscar Wilde's Speaker 2 (4:17) country home, did you sense the history? Did you feel his presence? Speaker 1 (4:21) I was too small to feel Oscar's presence, but I felt it later because my brother and sister were older and my brother gave me a book about the epigrams of Oscar Wilde when I was about eight, I think. Speaker 1 (4:35) I have lived on his quotes for the rest of my life. I collect quotes like other people collect jewelry and stuff like that. I even have a quote wall in our studio. I'm very inspired by Speaker 2 (4:47) words. Speaker 1 (4:48) Always been inspired by words. Speaker 2 (4:50) So what kinds of things captured your youthful imagination? I Speaker 1 (4:55) was a very wild child, not on drugs or anything like that, just wandering around the woods and very much on my own. I didn't have any friends until we actually went to Sligo when I was sent to school. Speaker 2 (5:10) How old were you when that happened? I think eight. It's a long time to be on your own in the woods. The Speaker 1 (5:17) woods actually brought me so much. The changing light and shadow, the mossy floors, the changing light in Ireland. You know, the sheen on the horses and the cows, you know, I got my first horse in Sligo. I didn't get a horse. I actually adopted a horse in a field who was grazing there and just jumped on his back. Speaker 2 (5:41) That sounds amazing. It also sounds to me, growing up like that, that you would have become very attuned to the cycles of nature and just the sort of natural rhythms of the earth. Maybe more so than somebody who was brought up in a more sort of noisy city type of area. Speaker 1 (6:01) Oh, very much so. I didn't wear shoes this summer. My mother would yell at me, so I'd take them off when I was out of sight. So I was doing early earthing, you might say, right? There are little patches now where you can earth. And the seasons were very important to me. And we also roaming around the fields, you found wild blackberries and wild raspberries and nuts and stuff like that. I mean, I was an early forager, you might say. And then my father had his organic garden. If you even mentioned the word chemical, he went up and smoked. So I was also very early green. Ah, okay. Speaker 2 (6:42) This Speaker 1 (6:42) is all checking out in Speaker 2 (6:44) the Speaker 1 (6:45) research I did on you. Speaker 2 (6:47) Tell me about your teenage years. You have this avant-garde mother, but you didn't really know she was avant-garde. You described your family as downwardly mobile and you as a bit feral. I'm wondering if you had a mind of your own, if you had a rebellious streak, if your creativity was manifesting. Speaker 1 (7:08) When I went to my first school in Sligo, I was a pretty defiant kid because when they moved me from the class from kindergarten to the first class. They said I was the youngest kid in the class and they wouldn't move me. So I rebelled. I stormed home and said I wouldn't go back to school anymore. I walked the whole way home. And in the end, the headmaster came out and apologized to me. So I went back. I always remember his name was Mr. Blackburn. He must have been about 10 feet high to me, but probably over six feet. I absolutely rebelled. Speaker 2 (7:47) Wow. Leadership skills were getting forged early on. Well, rebellion, certainly. Speaker 1 (7:55) Since I was the smallest child, it's not fair or wait for me. My little days wouldn't keep up. Speaker 2 (8:01) When you did rebel like this, did you have the backup of your parents? Did you feel supported? Well, Speaker 1 (8:07) my mother, if I had one of my it's not fair rages and slam the bedroom door would make make toast and tea and leave it outside the door scones to mollify me through food like a little dog. Speaker 2 (8:22) But Speaker 1 (8:23) they didn't know how to talk to me. No. They were both brought up in highly non-communicative households. And the story behind it, and the reason why nobody talked that much, is that my father actually eloped with his son's fiance. They got cut off from both their families. And we were the children of that. Speaker 2 (8:47) So there was some scandal underscoring the whole family unit. But Speaker 1 (8:52) we didn't know that, not until a lot later. Speaker 2 (8:54) So does that mean you were sort of disconnected then from your extended family? Speaker 1 (8:58) Absolutely, yeah. Speaker 2 (9:01) Okay, so you also had a pretty epic horseback riding accident in your teenage years, and you broke your back in three places, and it laid you up in bed for months. I'm interested in this time in your life. I mean, it's usually pretty pivotal when someone faces their own mortality like that at a young age. But also, I know this is also a time when you kind of made a choice about your future. So can you talk to me about this time? Speaker 1 (9:27) Yeah, I actually... was a child who got into horrible accidents even before that. I cut my wrist when I was about five and fell on a glass bowl and my nanny left me bleeding. She was so frightened and I nearly bled out. I had a burst appendix when I was three and nearly died. My father gave me a horse and he was saddle shy. Which means he didn't like the saddle being put on him. and I was supposed to lunge him when I came home from boarding school, and I didn't. I got up on him, put the saddle on and got up, and he just flew and started bucking like you've seen in the rodeos, and he actually snapped the leather straps that hold the girth to the saddle, and the saddle and I flew onto hard ground. And I was lying there. I don't know if you've ever had the breath knocked out of your body. You kind of can't breathe. I was lying there, and there was a kind of, A seer, I suppose you could call him, called Old John, who used to wander around the country fields, would give you jars of nettle things and stuff if you were sick. And he came along when I was lying on the ground and he looked down at me, not even offering to help me to get up. He said, if you live till you're 24, you might die at 24. You will be a healer, but not in the medical sense. And with that, he actually walked off. Speaker 1 (10:51) And I managed to get myself up somehow and crawl down to the house. That always lives on my mind. What Speaker 2 (10:59) a prophecy. That is wild. And you had never met this person before. Oh, Speaker 1 (11:04) I had. I'd seen him wandering around the fields and sometimes come to the house with yellow liquids from my mother, you know, who had problems with her health. But I'd never talked to him. But he just stood and looked down at me. He said that. It was really quite a strange moment for me. Speaker 2 (11:21) Did it resonate? Did it ring true? Did you have some sort of knowing that it was accurate? Or did it worry you that you were going to die at 24? Speaker 1 (11:30) Well, yeah, dying at 24 resonated plenty. And I married my first husband when I was 21. But I told him, you know, I said, you may lose me at 24. So when my 24th birthday came up, I was kind of wondering. But as you can... Here in the sea, I'm right here. Speaker 2 (11:52) With this potential short time span left to live, do you think you maximized the life you did have? Did it put some urgency into your decisions? Well, he Speaker 1 (12:01) said if I didn't die at 24, I'd live quite a long life. But I had previous accidents. I've always felt life is tenuous and you should use every minute. Speaker 2 (12:12) While you were laid up, you saw an ad in the Irish Times that said, why not be a dress designer? And you thought to yourself, why not? So you set your sights on becoming a fashion designer, but you also knew this would be a really controversial choice in your family. Speaker 1 (12:30) My father's brother, who was still talking to the family, had more degrees than anybody