Designer Edeline Lee, 45, returned to London once again for her Women and Power speaker series, which celebrates women in leadership and style.
The curated programme, now in its eighth edition, brings together influential women across the arts, journalism and politics to examine power, identity and cultural leadership in fashion.
Previous speakers have included supermodel Christy Turlington Burns and historian Mary Beard. But for this instalment, Irish actress, writer and producer Sharon Horgan, 55, offered one of her most candid reflections on the realities of dressing for both on and off screen.
Horgan revealed that while wearing a beautiful outfit can feel instantly empowering, the effect often collapses the moment camera flashes begin.
"When I’m on the red carpet […] I love being given a beautiful thing to wear and you just instantly feel good. But then that all changes when someone takes a picture of you," Horgan laughs.
"You work so hard on a show […] and then it’s all spoiled by that night," she continued, referring to old fashion faux pas she’s made, calling the whole experience "tricky when there’s a spotlight on you in any way".
Lee, who launched her London-based label in 2014 after graduating from Central Saint Martins, is known for designing elegant, easy-to-wear clothing for women who want elevated style without effort.
When it comes to women's fashion, Lee says she designs for the modern woman, who "live hectic, collaged lives".
Her signature fabrics resist wrinkling and are designed to function at any pace, worn by women across sectors – including Taylor Swift, Olivia Colman and Gillian Anderson.
Horgan's eldest daughter now studies fashion at Central Saint Martins too, and apparently regularly advises (and constructively critiques) her mother’s wardrobe.
"She’s very critical," Horgan laughs.
A "healthy" but evolving relationship with clothes
Horgan describes her relationship with fashion as "pretty healthy," though markedly different from her earlier years.
"It’s pretty healthy. I mean, it’s changed over the years quite a lot," she says. "In my youth, I kind of dressed more flamboyantly […] but I also had to try less hard. Now I feel like everything takes such an effort."
Her everyday uniform is pragmatic: jeans and a T-shirt. "I love anything that’s easy to wear but stylish and takes very little extra stuff," she says.
"Like my favourite thing would be to put on a dress that I don’t need to add a lot of extra things to – and it just feels like that’s what [Edeline Lee’s] clothes do."
No matter how much her relationship with clothes has evolved, however, like most women, Horgan still finds the shopping scene a dreaded experience.
"I hate shopping […] I’ll buy anything from whatever shop has a good mirror," she laughs.
Learning the red carpet rules
Horgan’s first red carpet was for one of the first programmes she’d written, Pulling.
She recalled attending the BAFTA Awards before she had a stylist back in 2007. "You certainly didn’t get [a big clothes budget] when you were on a little BBC Three show that no one watched," she says modestly.
"I think I went in my black mini dress [then] the realisation that someone wanted to take a photo was like – [I mean I was] hunched up, my whole posture was terrible," she laughs.
As her work began reaching American audiences, expectations changed. "Instead of just having a little BBC Three show […] suddenly there’s money and budgets, and you’re being paraded around," she said. Even now, with stylist Rachel Davis, the scrutiny is unrelenting.
"You think about it all the time – even when someone is helping you," she says, "it’s tricky when there’s a spotlight on you."
Clothing, character and costume in TV
For Horgan, clothes are more than adornment – they play a character in themselves.
As the force behind acclaimed TV shows such as Pulling, Catastrophe, Motherland and the thriller-comedy Bad Sisters, she understands how wardrobe registers emotional detail.
"We obsessed about costume," she says of Bad Sisters. "You want the clothes to express [the characters].
"We wanted it to feel real […] You want the costume to show when someone’s in love, because you dress differently when you’re in love […] costume is kind of everything."
A character creation that has remained with her is Karen in Pulling. "She dressed in this really sort of hyper-feminine way, but she was so tough," she says, "the clothes gave her a hard edge, it kind of allowed her to be who she wanted to be, but it also kept people at arm’s length."
It is precisely the kind of aesthetic psychology that makes Horgan’s work so astutely accurate and beloved.
"You get a buzz when you look good – when you feel good," she says.
Lee’s Women and Power series encapsulates this reflection. A reminder that clothes are not simply surface, but part of how people orient themselves emotionally, professionally and sometimes even politically in the world.
