These young Irish designers are taking the fashion world by storm

As a former theatre school kid at the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Cork, Ríon understands the potential and the power of fashion.

“I don’t name my garments but I do feel that I take on a different mood when I am wearing certain items of clothing. I feel like I can play different characters within different pieces of clothing,” she says.

This might explain why high-profile performers are so drawn to her designs and her vision of how to style them for the stage.

Her list of fans includes Kate Nash, Denise Chaila, and Lyra. Last year, she also created her first custom wedding outfit for I’m Grand Mam’s PJ Kirby, from a repurposed vintage wedding dress and white denim (an embrace of zero-waste fashion is core to her brand).

“I work a lot with Kate Nash and we do a lot of world-building together,” she says. “Kate is up for anything and we have the same vision. I dressed her for one of her shows during the summer and she also let me dress all her band members, the people on lights, the people on the door. If you were in the audience and you could see crew members, they were dressed by me.”

Ríon, aged 28, is a previous recipient of the DCCI Future Makers Award and the RDS Craft Award. Having studied at Limerick School of Art & Design, she has interned with Charles Jeffrey Loverboy, worked on the production of the YSL AW20 collection, and showcased her work at Copenhagen Fashion Week.

She is seen as a shining light by many in Ireland’s young and thriving fashion industry, and is one of the founders of Dublin Independent Fashion Week (DIFW), an event which brings creators across the capital together for a week in November.

“It’s great to see people getting excited about it as they do about fashion weeks in Copenhagen or Paris,” she says of DIFW. “I’ve been seeing people taking pictures of each other’s outfits in the street and thinking, ‘Oh my god, are we really making a Dublin Fashion Week?’”

For many of the designers involved, DIFW has provided a chance to showcase their work to the media as well as prospective trade and retail buyers.

Designed to increase the profile of the Irish fashion scene both here and abroad, it has also given these independent designers the opportunity to support each other as creatives.

“It can be difficult working as an independent designer. You spend a lot of time by yourself in your studio and sometimes you can think, ‘What am I doing this for?’” she says. “You work so hard and put your heart and soul into something for it to exist somewhere in the abyss of the internet, so having people physically being there and supporting each other has been the best part of it for me.”

The original eight founders — including Laoise Carey, Aisling Duffy, and Sarah O’ Neill of The Zero Waster — got together after the Trinity Fashion Society fashion show in 2023.

“We decided it was mad that this show was the only place in Ireland that we could show our work. It was great but you can’t even study fashion in Trinity and we thought that we would start our own thing.

“We pulled together the first, somewhat rickety, DIFW about four months later — there were handwritten signs on the door — but last year there were 24 designers involved in a much bigger affair, including our Ones to Watch applicants.”

It comes as nothing new that Irish fashion graduates tend to leave these shores for work. Ríon, who hails from The Lough in Cork, says it doesn’t have to be the case.

“We are trying to build a support network because so many people graduate from fashion colleges in Ireland and then just move away. We are losing so many people to the likes of London and Paris. Of course, there are opportunities there that are just not here but Ireland is so rich in creativity and talent that we are trying to put Dublin on the map as a fashion capital and to show that you can stay here and become a fashion designer. You don’t have to leave Ireland to make it.”

To many, fashion has a tough, bitchy image. Ríon says that this is not, and does not have to be, the case.

“The community that we have built is gorgeous because we’re all in the same boat. If someone has broken their machine or needs advice on a shoot, we are all here to give each other a hand. I was always told not to trust the person next to me, to be in it for myself, and to be rather cut-throat, which is something that has never sat well with me. There’s enough space for everyone.”

Ríon makes clothing for “humans of all sorts” and is less concerned about the gender of the wearer than she is with the garments themselves and their theatricality. “I’ve never really thought about it too much,” says the designer.

“Every time I make a collection, my priorities shift a little bit,” she says. Her latest collection, ‘Chapter 6,’ is made from Irish linen sourced at third-generation Emblem Weavers in Wexford.

“Meeting the weavers and using this sustainable fabric is an important aspect of things for me at the moment,” she explains.

As a zero-waste designer, Ríon has also become known for her “scrap babies”, which are creatures made from the fabric remnants in her studio. She says that she often personifies the things she owns and that the scrap babies are an extension of this habit, as well as a way of making people think more about the value of the fabric they’re made from.

“If you put a face or a hand or a boot on something, people will automatically start giving it pronouns, have more respect for it, and will look after it much better. When it comes to the idea of sustainability, looking after your clothing is so important.”

She has always been drawn to making clothing or “sculptural things that you can wear”, even as a secondary school student applying for art college. “I was very focused on the crinoline skirt. It’s the proportions and the idea of inner-wear as outerwear — what lies beneath. Maybe I was a Victorian lady in a past life or something. I have no idea why but, when I’m stressed, I’ll make a corset. It’s how I relax,” she says.

She also loves to wear them. “When you put on a corset, you hold yourself differently, you stand differently. I loved when Denise Chaila told me that wearing one of my corsets was like wearing a weighted blanket. I totally get that. That was one of the biggest compliments ever. For someone to feel so held and safe by one of my garments is just so beautiful. I also think people like the costume element, the idea of escaping into a different world or escaping your everyday life when you put on this garment.”

For her own part, Ríon says that she has realised over time that she much prefers to make costumes than to perform on stage.

“I loved drama school but I actually hate lots of people looking at me. I’ve realised that, while I love the creative side of it and the buzz of it, I much prefer being backstage. Ask me to make you an outfit for the stage? That’s my dream.”

rionhannora.com

By Ruth O’Connor

Oran O’Reilly

Last year was the year of cool-girl genre mixing musicians and one Dubliner was dressing them from his family home in Rathfarnham.

Using his mum as a fit-model, Oran O’Reilly specialises in creating designs conjured from his endless catalogue of pop-culture references, from Desperate Housewives to supernatural female-focused flicks and everything in between. Creating pieces for Chappell Roan, CMAT, The Last Dinner Party, Paul Mescal’s sister and budding musician Nell Mescal, as well as a bevy of top drag performers, Oran is just 22 and wrapping up his final semester in IADT in Dún Laoghaire.

A creative child growing up, he was always drawn to art but fashion wasn’t his focus until early adulthood. “The culture on my peripheral was really impactful. My mum was obsessed with Sex and the City, Neighbours — all these soapy, campy shows. That definitely had an impact on me in terms of style and fashion,” he says.

The designer initially set his sights on playwriting but opted for design for film as his choice of education. Here, he practised a number of disciplines but fell in love with costume design, igniting the series of events that would lead to his career and, ultimately, influence his work.

“There has to be an explanation or a story or a reasoning behind everything in costume design. So, when it comes to fashion, it really informs me in the way of the theatrics — over-the-topness and camp sensibility is always inherent with costume. It makes me think, ‘What story is it telling just by looking at it?’”

This referential storytelling is blatant in his work — such as imagery from the cult horror Possession printed onto a performance dress for The Last Dinner Party’s Abigail Morris, or a dress for Roan inspired by iconic drag artist Divine in John Waters’s flick Pink Flamingos. 

And, really, it all started with a story of a different kind — an Instagram story. Ahead of his college course, Oran got a sewing machine and, being “obsessed with Vivienne Westwood at the time”, found a pattern for a corset online. “I made two shitty little corsets that were, looking back, horrible,” he says. After some experimentation, he made a corset for a friend emblazoned with the face of actress Natasha Lyonne. “That was the third thing I’d ever made and the first thing I was proud of, so I posted it on Instagram and Natasha reposted it on her story. I got a few messages from people asking if I sold them and that was the moment that [it] clicked.”

Acknowledging the role social media has played in his success so far, he is well aware of the need for young designers to be visible on algorithms.

“Social media is the most impactful thing when it comes to young designers. It’s how everything has come about for me. I’m so grateful for it. But I hate social media. I get so overwhelmed by it — but it is the No1 tool.”

He mourns the loss of fashion culture of decades past, when mid-century designers would work with individual clients rather than for the many.

“I miss that aspect of when clothes were just clothes for clothes’ sake but now you have to think of the social media aspect. You can’t control how something’s going to be perceived on social media but I’ve been so lucky and so grateful that things have worked out.”

The junction where real life and social media perception meet is in performance garments for artists. Reflecting on the opportunities he found with a number of musicians, the Dubliner can’t quite believe the “snowball effect” he has experienced. As always, success can come with imposter syndrome. He recalled the torment of wondering if Roan would really wear the dress he made for her Kentucky Pride Festival performance in 2024, waiting up late into the night as photos and videos from the festival began surging onto social media.

“I was like, ‘She’s not going to wear it.’ On the day, I was on Twitter, refreshing, waiting. And then I finally saw it. I was overwhelmed. I thought, ‘That’s not my dress.’ I had convinced myself that they got somebody else to make it. I woke up the next day still conflicted. Hours went by and I got a notification saying, ‘Chappell Roan tagged you in a post.’”

His dad insisted that he make a TikTok about the process of creating the dress for the Midwest Princess and it blew up, with over a quarter of a million views at the time of publication.

Many of Oran’s pieces feature imagery of influential women. “It’s purely just my appreciation, love, and reverence for women, especially misunderstood women,” he says. “I feel like, in the media, women are portrayed as characters, whether they are or not. They always have to represent something. Women can’t just be women. They can’t just simply exist. People always put labels on them.”

Existing in the fashion industry in general can be a struggle and, while the fashion designer wants to remain in Ireland, he understands the necessity for many to seek work abroad. “If only there was some way for everyone to uplift each other but it’s very difficult when people are struggling to uplift themselves,” he says.

And despite his work being worn by some of the ultimate insiders in the worlds of art, music, and fashion, Oran doesn’t see himself as one of them — heralding it as the only attitude that helps him persevere with his work without overthinking too much.

He added: “I feel like I am an outsider in the fashion industry and that gives me the opportunity to look at the industry as a consumer rather than a player in the game.

“It’s an odd thing. I always just say that I make clothes.”

@oranjaurelio

By Sarah Magliocco

Greg Hall

When Pellador hosted a fashion show for its spring/summer 2025 collection at Skehan’s Freehouse pub in west London in December, the guests stayed for more than a procession of the Irish brand’s hit jacquard sportswear, printed denim, and hoodies inspired by 1990s football culture. In one corner, there was a traditional music session. Bowls of hearty beef stew floated around, to be washed down with creamy pints of Guinness. This wasn’t your average fashion show. This was a community gathering.

Pellador isn’t your average fashion brand either. Founded by Limerick-based Greg in November 2022, the sportswear brand capitalised on a childhood obsession with Manchester United greats such as David Beckham and Roy Keane and a generational affinity with vintage-inspired clothing. To wear the brand, whose name derives from the Irish word for “footballer”, is to pledge allegiance to a club.

It’s a club whose members are in the hundreds if not thousands. At a Dublin pop-up in December, a queue formed for hours outside in the cold to have a chance to buy the brand’s latest products. In London the week prior, a pop-up shop turned into a venue to meet like-minded fans of the brand.

“It was so much fun getting to meet the people who support Pellador,” says Greg. “People would come to shop and have a pint of Guinness. Most people stayed there all night and came out with us afterwards.”

Greg, who turned 30 in November, is a self-taught designer from Co Clare. He studied music and English with computer science at University College Cork. As a teenager, music was always an outlet and the branding behind it led him to graphic design. When he graduated, he worked as a graphic designer for an events company in Dublin and moved to Limerick during the pandemic to start a printmaking and design business. Like Pellador, his first brand, Execute Exist, riffed on Celtic symbols and the Irish language. As this venture developed, Greg realised the clothing aspect interested him the most.

In November 2022, he launched Pellador as a line of vintage-inspired knit football jerseys.

“When I started designing knitwear — with no training, no experience — I naturally started designing football tops because it’s what I wanted to wear,” Greg says. He spent a year researching, sourcing, and visiting manufacturers and sampling product prototypes before Pellador launched. “I didn’t know how the industry worked,” he admits. Resourceful and intuitive, Greg and his former design partner — a friend who now lives and works in Copenhagen — took the collection to the epicentre of fashion: Paris Fashion Week. With limited knowledge, he stumbled upon Impossible Objects, a London-based showroom hosted in Paris, whom they befriended. The agency happily took them under their wing.

Six months later, he hosted a showroom during Paris Fashion Week with a full collection and a line sheet for wholesale buyers.

“I didn’t even know what wholesale was before going to Paris,” he says. Now, Pellador’s team consists of four people, including Greg. His right-hand man is Jordan ‘Dewey’ Kenny, with two other team members to help with design and other operational needs. Greg credits Impossible Objects with leading him down the path of becoming a “fashion brand” rather than an “Instagram direct-to-consumer brand”. He considers their guidance and taste levels influential to his success.

He isn’t beholden to fashion in the conventional sense of presenting up to six collections a year, selling to countless wholesale clients and hosting biannual fashion shows in London or Paris though. “I like being an outsider in the industry. I love being flexible and doing it our way,” he says.

His biggest strength is instinct and, over time, he has learned what offers to say yes to and what compromises are worth reaching.

Greg often soundboards ideas with friends in the Irish fashion industry such as Robbie Fidgeon Kavanagh and Charlie Proctor-Quigley from Emporium, Megan McGuigan from Seeking Judy, and Ríon Hannora O’Donovan, also profiled here.

In 2023, when Guinness came calling to produce a collaboration consisting of sweatshirts inspired by the 1980s Guinness soccer ads, Greg knew he had reached a big break. The limited run of 200 sweatshirts sold out online in minutes. At the Dublin pop-up, which was sponsored by Guinness, a re-release of 80 sweatshirts was the first item to sell out.

When an email from a buyer at Brown Thomas arrived the day after asking to stock the collection, he knew the brand was about to leap forward.

“I couldn’t believe it — two days in a row. I thought somebody was messing,” Greg says.

Late last year, Pellador’s ambition to open a permanent, standalone store was thwarted by a landlord who, Greg suggests, didn’t understand the brand or its vision. He took this as a sign, however, to channel his efforts into improving design and production, launching pop-up stores, and hosting events worldwide. Plans are already under way for Pellador’s first pop-up outside of Europe, he says.

Instead of hosting intimate runway presentations to showcase new work, Greg wants to produce bigger events and invite hundreds of people — industry professionals and fans alike. While Pellador’s production runs are limited, the brand doesn’t want to project an exclusive veneer — anyone can join this team.

Beyond business ambitions, Greg had one personal goal for 2025: “I want Roy Keane to wear Pellador.” By January 16, he had completed the mission. Next, with a buying trip to Paris Fashion Week, he hopes to secure more stockists that share Pellador’s values. “In 2025, I want us to do bigger and better collections.”

pellador.com

By Paul McLauchlan