Cristin Proctor Rooney explores how Irish fashion designers have shone during this Fashion Month, moving from 'emerging' talents to industry leaders and tastemakers.
Ireland has long punched above its weight culturally. Its literary giants have reshaped language, its musicians and dancers captivate audiences worldwide, and its actors continue to dominate awards season.
Fashion, long the quieter cousin of Ireland's creative exports, is now asserting its place in this lineage.
This season, Irish talent is impossible to ignore across Fashion Weeks. From London to New York, and soon Paris, Irish names are no longer merely emerging—they are setting the tone of modern luxury. From legacy houses to independent labels, Irish creatives now thread the calendar in ways unimaginable two decades ago.
This prominence rests on a lineage of storytelling, craft, textiles, and tailoring. The Emerald Isle’s global fashion status was cemented in the 1960s when Jacqueline Kennedy deemed an Irish designer worthy of the White House. By wearing Sybil Connolly’s pleated linen dress for her official portrait, the First Lady placed Irish design firmly on the international stage. Vogue described Connolly as "the vitamin C of the Erin-go-Couture movement." Her mission to elevate native materials into elegant, feminine silhouettes proved that Irish design could travel.
Decades later, in 1983, Connolly’s legacy echoed when Diana, Princess of Wales, began a partnership with Paul Costelloe that would define her style for over a decade. Credited with bringing colour and modernity to the wardrobe of the world’s most photographed woman, Costelloe demonstrated once again that Irish design could command the highest echelons of global fashion.
The son of a Limerick raincoat manufacturer, Costelloe trained at Dublin’s Grafton Academy of Fashion Design before continuing at Paris’s Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture. Later stints in Milan and New York gave him a global perspective, yet his work consistently returned to Irish fabrics, textures, and traditions. In 1979, he launched Paul Costelloe Collections, a family-run house rooted in craft, tailoring, and quiet elegance. Slim waists, strong shoulders, and elongated lines became his signature, elevating Irish textiles internationally.
A fixture at London Fashion Week since 1984, Costelloe guided his collections until his passing in November 2025. This season, his son William steps into the role of Creative Director, presenting the Autumn/Winter 2026 collection—the first without the founder at the helm.
The debut is a triumph, celebrating structure, proportion, and silhouette. Sculpted shoulders, cinched waists, and wide-pleated trousers channel an 80s-inflected mood, while Irish wools and tweeds anchor the collection in heritage. The in-house print marks the final collaboration between father and son, a tribute to Paul’s vision and the creative lineage William carries forward.
"My father’s international career showed that Irish design has a place on the world stage," William reflects. "By working globally while staying rooted in Irish craft and identity, he set a benchmark that continues to open doors for designers today."
Few designers embody this new wave as clearly as Ranelagh native Simone Rocha. The daughter of renowned designer John Rocha, she launched her label in 2010 after graduating from Central Saint Martins and has become a fixture at London Fashion Week, with admirers including Alexa Chung and Sarah Jessica Parker.
Rocha’s work is grounded in storytelling and rich textural contrast. Drawing on Irish folklore, her Dublin upbringing, and a lifelong connection to craft, she balances the whimsical with the architectural, the romantic with the deconstructed. Each show unfolds as a carefully orchestrated narrative.
This London Fashion Week, her Autumn/Winter collection continued her love of hard romanticism. The first part of the collection is titled Tír na nÓg and inspired by the 1936 Jack B Yeats painting. Moody and dramatic, it contrasts dark, harsh fabrics with delicate ribbons, soft shearling, sheer layers, pearls, and intricate handwork. Sharp tailoring and deconstructed corsetry meet oversized parkas, smock dresses, and sporty layering, creating tension between femininity and utility.
Subtle nods to her Irish upbringing are seen in ribbons laced like ghillies, rosettes, and Adidas-inspired sportswear, set to a soundtrack including Cat Power’s cover of The Pogues’ "A Pair of Brown Eyes".
Another highlight of London Fashion Week was an event to mark the opening of JW Anderson’s new Pimlico store, the eponymous brand of Irish designer Jonathan Anderson. The two-floor Belgravia space showcased Anderson’s refreshed London-based label: a curated emporium of fashion, homeware, and art.
Yet, it is Paris, rather than London, where global attention centres for Anderson. At 41, he occupies the rare role of sole Creative Director of Dior, overseeing womenswear, menswear, and haute couture—a consolidation unseen since Christian Dior himself.
Anderson’s debut collections honour the house’s heritage while subtly subverting its codes, reflecting his interest in the interchangeability of menswear and womenswear, a concept he has explored since launching JW Anderson in 2008. Literary and Irish references, from Dracula to Ulysses, infuse his work.
His shows are among the most anticipated in Paris with a front row featuring stars like Jennifer Lawrence, Sabrina Carpenter, and Robert Pattinson, and anticipation for his next womenswear collection next month is no different.
Born in 1984 in Magherafelt, Northern Ireland, and the son of Ireland rugby captain Willie Anderson, Jonathan trained at the London College of Fashion and worked at Prada before Loewe recruited him in 2013. At Loewe he modernised the Spanish brand, blending craft expertise with conceptual playfulness—a balance he now brings to Dior.
Between Dior, JW Anderson, and his Uniqlo collaboration, he produces 18 collections a year, keeping one foot in Paris and one firmly in London. From Rihanna’s Super Bowl outfit to Harry Styles’ viral patchwork cardigan, Anderson is undeniably a global fashion powerhouse.
However, he is not the only Irish designer shaping Parisian houses. At Alexander McQueen, 36-year-old Dubliner Seán McGirr is steering the brand into the future. Recruited from JW Anderson, where he led both menswear and womenswear, McGirr succeeded Sarah Burton, McQueen’s long-serving creative custodian. While his debut met skepticism, he has approached the archives with reverence, immersing himself in Lee McQueen’s sketches and early shows, drawing on their shared Celtic heritage and folklore to inform his vision.
McGirr’s design instincts trace back to his childhood in Bayside, Dublin, where he learned to sew on his grandmother’s 1950s machine and first discovered McQueen’s collections in Brown Thomas. He refined his craft at London College of Fashion, earning a scholarship through Louise Wilson, the legendary Central Saint Martins professor who also mentored Simone Rocha.
Global stints followed: designing Uniqlo capsules in Tokyo, working in Antwerp for Dries Van Noten, and returning to London with JW Anderson.
At McQueen, he leads a collaborative atelier blending his team with artisans spanning back to Lee’s era. His collections balance London street energy with McQueen’s theatricality, producing pieces at once contemporary and resonant with the house’s storied legacy.
He has also designed a Met Gala gown for Lana Del Rey, establishing himself as a rising force on the international stage.
Across the Atlantic, Belfast-born stylist Alastair McKimm has shaped New York Fashion Week's most recent Marc Jacobs show. After studying fashion design at Nottingham Art School, McKimm worked as Fashion and Image Director for Vogue France and consulted for brands including Bottega Veneta, Calvin Klein, and Gucci. Known for blending modern luxury with youth culture and streetwear, he embodies the contemporary Irish creative presence abroad.
All of these designers are united in their ability to carve out distinctive voices while honouring the legacies that came before them: whether familial, national, or archival. They navigate critique and expectation with creativity, asserting their vision without compromising authenticity. At the heart of their work is a uniquely vibrant Irish energy, drawn from a heritage centred in folklore, literature, craft, and tradition, which translates into designs that feel immediately recognisable and entirely fresh.
"What’s exciting now is how this generation is building on that legacy in their own distinct voices" adds William Costelloe, "more diverse, more outward-looking, yet deeply connected to where we come from. Irish fashion today feels assured, contemporary, and increasingly influential internationally."
When this heritage intersects with the global pulse of creative capitals like London, Paris, and New York, it produces a singular synthesis of craft and innovation. The result is a generation of Irish designers who not only reshape the trajectory of fashion but also claim their place among the most influential of their time.
Ireland’s fashion story is now firmly global—and proudly its own.
