Paul Costelloe on the Trumps: 'Whether you agree with his politics or not, the family are outrageously smart-looking'

A lifer in the world of fashion, he says his years in the trade mean he is as good as ever.

“Age doesn’t play a part,” he says down a phone line from London. “I don’t need to try and be harder anymore. I just need to enjoy it. So as long as I’m enjoying it and it’s not too stressful, it can be comparatively pleasant. And oddly enough I find spring summer a lot easier than winter, because in winter you are dominated by heavy materials: by the darkness, by the weather, by the shitty climate we have. At least you can think, that will be a summers day, you can live on that for a little longer.”

Costelloe has been living it all for quite a while. It also gives him a helicopter view of an industry that is forever following the same cycles yet is constantly changing, maybe more than ever in an increasingly fractured world.

“I think, from the point of view of the catwalk, it’s got very little to do with what people would be wearing the following season, because it is so extreme in most cases and to get any notice at all, you have to be fairly extrovert,” he says.

“It’s just like making some movies. Some of the movies, like the one, for example, it’s up for an Oscar, with Demi Moore [The Substance], it’s very extreme. She hadn’t been nominated for 20 years, she gets nominated.”

As ever, Costelloe has spotted the fashion moment in the film.

“She wears this amazing yellow coat,” he says, with a slight sense of wonder. “But that’s an example of the extreme you have to go to have people talk about you or to be noticed.

“What we wear every day is something that could have happened [on the catwalk] maybe three or four years ago. It takes so long for it to get into the general market, because it’s all to do with manufacturing and quantities.

“If I, for example, design some amazing evening dress, it’s going to cost a couple of thousand pounds, and who has that money? So you take an idea and you water it down, and then you get it for €250 in my studio collection in Dunnes Stores. It’s a fascinating industry from that point of view, but has it changed? Yes it has. Probably even to get into [it] all takes a lot more money to build up your brand. It also takes a lot of travel. I’ve just come back from Milan yesterday evening after a fabric fair over there, which was, by the way, incredibly invaluable.”

PEOPLE-WATCHING

For Costelloe, this is more than just the fabrics on display, but the other element of the fashion world which can be just as vital — the art of people watching.

“Before you even get off the plane, this is coming from London to Milan on an airline, and the girl in front of us was wearing a very well-cut coat. And I made to her some comment, and that doesn’t happen between London and Dublin, but it happens between London and Milan because it’s in their culture,” he says. 

“She was Italian, of course, and it’s just an attitude. So once you get that little pop of inspiration, whatever your age, it keeps you moving on to the next collection. And I was just in Milan buying fabrics for Spring 2026 — God! But that’s the thing, with cinema, with home design, it’s just a little drop of blood, a little drop of rain, whatever it is, that can seal your ideas.”

And then, just in case it’s all sounding a little too serious, he adds with a laugh: “And that’s a lot of bullshit too.”

Last year, Costelloe had a bout of ill health linked to a diabetes diagnosis, but he says he’s fine now — if anything it seems to have galvanised him further.

“I’m still here enjoying it somewhat, coping on the pressures of what fashion is meant to be or what’s not meant to be, of course, mortality plays into all our lives, but it’s kind of a bit like Ian Paisley, don’t surrender, don’t allow it to beat you,” he says. “I think that’s really where I come from, that age is like a university. You know, you’ve got all this knowledge and you should be sharing it, and every year you’re richer for it. So I’ve got no complaints from that point of view.

“The more experience you have in this industry, the better you are. Why should I step back from that epitaph? What I have is [an] incredible amount of knowledge, incredible amount of knowing what’s right, what’s wrong, so should I step back and go slower? 

"No, what I do is I push harder because I know it’s correct, so it’s like driving down a blind alley. No, I know where I’m going. I know I have to turn right and turn left. So from that point of view, age is not relevant.”

In a world of ‘fast fashion’ however, he doesn’t see longevity being a focus across a trade that is always questing for the latest thing.

“You know that kind of longevity is not really considered, unfortunately, in fashion, particularly women,” he says with a laugh. 

“Women haven’t changed, if they get excited about something they want it and they want it now and they want it instantly and all that gratification that goes with that purchase. Yes, one should say this is amazing fabric, it’s going to last a couple of seasons.

“I don’t know, it is such an aggressive business, so superficial, superficiality wins out; because she saw Demi Moore wear this yellow coat. I had yellow in my screen for this season and nobody wears yellow, it’s one of the most difficult colours. It’s the colour of a daffodil, this is the most beautiful flower in the world in my opinion, but to be worn is slightly more challenging, and particularly with the Irish skin, unless you’re from the south of Spain or somewhere you can’t get away with it. But it is what it is.”

One woman who certainly got away with wearing yellow was Diana Spencer. Costelloe has spoken in the past of the sheer visual impact of Princess Diana. The memories of Diana-as-client prompt a riff on those lucky souls who seem to be able to make any clothing work.

“I think there are always these people who you can throw anything on them, and they look great,” he says. “She could be the girl next door. She could be your neighbour. She could be something you will see briefly and never again.

“Those are the people who can carry fashion with a statement. Emma Stone, Nicole Kidman, Anya Taylor-Joy. Those people, anything they put on, because they know how to wrap a coat around them, they know how to tie the belt. You see people wearing wrap coats, which are very functional, but they can make them not the most flattering. But they know how to tie the coat. They can look amazing. It’s like tying a bow in your head as a little girl, it’s like my wife can tie a scarf and look incredible, make it look amazing, just throw it around their shoulders. It’s something you’re born with.

“I’m so sheltered in my little studio and what I see on Oxford Circus or on Great Porter St where my studio is, is not exactly Boulevarde St Germain, so that’s why you always need to be travelling.”

MARVEL MOVIES

As for Diana, he says he was not asked for any input into her famous dress sense for the recent Netflix series The Crown, and he doesn’t seem that bothered either way.

“I had no interest in that TV programme,” he says. “I think I might have watched it by mistake a few times, but I honestly felt, God love her, it was very entertaining and that’s what it’s all about but I don’t think... it didn’t do the family any justice and it didn’t do the boys any justice. But I think a lot of people, particularly in Ireland, thrive on that. They love the royal family. They’re probably more royalist than the English over here. But is it entertainment? Give me a Marvel movie any time.”

Looking back on the Diana era, he says: “You have your moments of glory, and then it’s over very quick, quickly, and that was one of my moments. But I’m still prepared for another one.”

Speaking of people who are apparently obsessed with the British Royal Family, Donald Trump has recently brought his plunging red ties back into the White House. 

Weirdly, men’s fashion has become another little sideshow in the ongoing culture wars, with men of a certain political stripe seemingly hooked on micro suits that show every bulging bicep and calf muscle, as opposed to the returning classic trend of flow-and-drape. If the latter brings to mind someone like Cary Grant, the former might be more aligned with Clive James’s classic description of bodybuilder-era Arnold Schwarzenegger as “a condom full of walnuts”. Costelloe has a more nuanced view.

“Well, all the Italian men squeeze into their suits, they have a cropped trouser with the ankles showing and a jacket that you would probably consider too short. But they can get away with it because they have that lovely Roman physical build, but be careful, tread carefully because that can look dreadful on the body that doesn’t have those features,” he says.

“If you take, for example, Donald Trump and his family, they are all so smartly dressed, my God. Whether you agree with his politics or not, but boy, his son-in-laws and his daughter-in-laws and whoever they were, the family, outrageously smart-looking.”

He believes Irish knitwear is always in fashion in America, in keeping with a broader cultural boom: “I think Ireland is going through a glorious moment from the point of view as a country, whether it’s cinema, whether it’s music, whether it’s writers, great female writers, it’s very much the moment to be Irish.”

James Joyce and Ulysses was his own inspiration for his Autumn 2024 show, and he namechecks a number of Irish designers and the stars who attract the cameras. I make a quick reference to Paul Mescal and his O’Neill’s shorts and it turns out Costelloe would love to have a go at designing the Irish men’s rugby team’s attire.

At his show at London Fashion week last Autumn for Spring Summer 2025, his collection included, for the first time, wedding dresses, and he is planning a black and white collection in Irish linen.

“I kind of like an easy life,” he says. “Don’t listen to anybody and keep paddling your own canoe,” is how he sums up what is to come — and maybe he’s just the man to design that waterproof riverbank attire to make sure he keeps to riding the currents.