The Grafton Academy

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The Grafton Academy of Fashion Design is a third‑level college in Dublin, Ireland. It offers a three‑year full‑time Diploma in Fashion Design and short courses in fashion topics. Courses can be taken full or part‑time.

It was started in 1938 by Pauline Elizabeth Keller Clotworthy. She was born in 1912 and grew up in Glenageary. She studied at Dublin's Metropolitan School of Art (now NCAD). A tutor, Seán Keating, warned her not to turn life drawings into fashion illustrations and encouraged her to learn how to render fabrics and textures using watercolour at Browns Paris School of Fashion in London. Back in Dublin, Arnotts manager Ronald Nesbit urged her to learn how to turn fashion drawings into real clothes. She returned to London to train at the British Institute of Dress Designing, where Hardy Amies was a fellow student. Realising Ireland lacked this kind of training, she decided to share what she had learned. After she graduated in 1938, she started the Grafton Academy, Ireland's first design school, and it held its debut show within a year.

Early graduates who helped promote Irish fashion include Neilli Mulcahy, Ib Jorgensen and Clodagh Phillips. As of 2018, the academy is run by Clotworthy's daughter Suzanne Marr.