#GaiaInspires | Michele Munnelly, textile designer

It was very exciting to welcome Michele Munnelly, who has been a part of the Gaia Baby Family since the early days, back to our newly decorated showroom. (Watch the video below)

Passionate about art since her college days, Michele didn’t get a chance to pursue it as a career as things got in the way (i.e. life!). She never gave up on her dream and after an evening art class restored her interest and self-belief, she applied to some of the most distinguished universities and colleges in Dublin. To her amazement, she was accepted into them all and she took the leap of enrolling into National College of Art & Design (NCAD) undergraduate Fine Art programme at the age of 50. No mean feat.

Drawing inspiration from the Greek Goddess, Gaia, Michele created the ‘Owl & Vine’ design and the “Gaia Embrace”. Both of these designs are used as wallpaper for our Gaia Baby in-store fit-outs, as well as printable artwork and, hopefully in the near future, textiles for the Gaia Baby range. In our chat together, Michele describes the journey as a ‘steep learning curve’ with tons of research and tweaks to her designs to both add to and strengthen the Gaia Baby branding.

Her current work involves a unique idea of imprinting ‘selfies’ onto silk scarves giving it a personalised and distinct feel. She has also been deeply interested in the art of documenting and diary keeping along with doing a research on the often forgotten & overlooked ‘Vicereigns’ (wives of the Viceroy) who lived in Dublin Castle over the years.

Watch our full interview with Michele here: