Move over, Project Runway. Patrick Boylan has been a fashion designer “his entire adult life,” says the Las Vegas Review Journal, but for the past decade or so he’s been creating designer vestments from Italian silk damasks and brocades that factor in a priest’s tastes, liturgical colors, and the church space they will be worn in.
The paper covered Boylan’s visit to Christ Church Episcopal in Las Vegas to get insight on why a church might want specially designed vestments:
The Rev. Kent “Buck” Belmore, rector of Christ Church, says people sometimes ask why a church would need custom-designed vestments. It’s because, he replies, “these are things of beauty that will last 50 years or more, and they’ll be in service to the glory of God for that period of time.”
Boylan started his company, Grace Liturgical Vestments, in the late 90s after burning out on the demands of the fashion industry. Once he started working with vestments, he says:
“Instantly I knew that this was something that spoke to me creatively,” Boylan says. “It tapped into all of my background and abilities and my sense of working with fabric and my work with color.”
Also, Boylan says, “at the end of the day, it’s just very profound work, to know that the work of my hands is being used in the way that these vestments are used.”
You can read the story and see some of his work here.