London Fashion Week 2022: Irish designers among the highlights

Richard Malone

Artist and designer Richard Malone, like others, opted for a digital, rather than a live, presentation of his collection, with a photo shoot of his 22 new looks. “London Fashion Week needs to be shaken up – there is so much pressure for a show and our collections are not really seasonal,” he explains. As always, he remains true to his fundamental principles and is fearless when it comes to speaking on issues he considers important.

This collection, like all of his to date, makes use of deadstock fabric, this time from LVMH and Mulberry with whom he collaborated last year on a bag collection. A ruffled shirt made from deadstock has pride of place in a dedicated window in Selfridges.

His emphasis on form, fluidity and fabric is expressed in unconventional but authentic ways. His signature fabric manipulation creates silhouettes that seem abstract, often theatrical.

“I have always been fascinated by shapes, and most of the garments are built on my body in response to function and comfort, and seeing how things feel is more natural to me. I then work on difficult pattern cutting. My approach is very much away from the body and is less constricting. It is also very much about otherness and exploring identity and appeals to those who are a little bit different, like Róisín Murphy and Björk.”

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With its vibrant colours (some great coats) and inventive shapes, this is one of his most assured collections to date.

His travelling exhibition of contemporary visual art, Making and Momentum, a tribute to Eileen Gray, which made its debut in France last July and is currently in Collins Barracks, will move to his native Wexford on April 1st, running until May 16th.

Banshee of Savile Row

For Ruby Slevin and Rocco Tullio, it is a source of pride that their Banshee of Savile Row, founded in 2019, was the first woman’s Savile Row tailoring name on the official schedule of London Fashion Week. Their collection, “a celebration of a return to glamour”, was presented in the Messums Gallery in Cork Street, London, with live models, mannequins, music and a short film by Lee Malone.

The emphasis on craftsmanship and luxurious fabrics sustainably sourced from European mills is illustrated in every piece, from a dashing red military-style “mess” jacket in wild silk to a long black velvet coat called “The Black Raven” lined with bright green silk. “It always starts with the cloth,” explains Slevin.

What the pair bring to their custom-made tailoring is a fresh, light-hearted but grounded approach – jackets in red gingham seersucker, denim sets with flared trousers in linen/cotton, seasonless silk braided barathea trousers that don’t crease, sharp wedding suits and a real winner called the Assassin Suit in gold wool for stylish metropolitans that sparkles in the light.

Paul Costelloe

Viewed on a “cold, grey afternoon in lockdown”, the movie Shakespeare In Love was the starting point for Paul Costelloe’s winter 22 collection, generating ideas of silhouette and decor from the Elizabethan period, a highly fashion-conscious age. His response was nonetheless highly modern and flamboyant, presented on a line-up of tousled haired international models in his usual location in the Waldorf Hilton, London, as Storm Eunice raged outside.

Movement and fluidity contrasted with taut tailoring, print with solid colour. Flouncy, flirtatious baby doll dresses in regal gold and black brocade anchored with sleeveless leather jackets tightly belted at the waist and accessorised with his son William Costelloe’s gold-printed leggings were alluring combinations.

For winter, long tweed coats from Magee in Donegal in what he called Van Dyck browns tied with orange leather belts were decorated with pleated organza ruffs. In a nod to more romantic evenings, several fit and flare dresses, with sweetheart necklines, came in bold floral prints. Sleeves were notable: some were sumptuous and puffball while others had sharp pagoda points, all of which accentuated bare necklines and made for dramatic silhouettes.

The grandeur of the period was reflected in black ball gowns whose décolleté, cinched waists and belled skirts emphasised the bosom as they did in the Tudor period. Knitwear was strong; draped knitted shawls over polo neck knitwear in ochre kept a flouncy brown mini skirt in check.

All this made for a collection that was playful in spirit and often voluptuous, but exquisitely calibrated and finished with laser-cut bags in gold and silver with jewellery from both Ireland (Bláithín Ennis) and India (Nidhi Creations). Costelloe is proud of this collection and hopes to bring it to Dublin before the year is out.

Robyn Lynch

London-based Dubliner Robyn Lynch is fast making a name for menswear, having graduated from the University of Westminster in June 2018. Her collection in collaboration with US outdoor specialists Columbia Sportswear, shown in the NewGen space (formerly the Old Selfridges Hotel), was dynamic and colourful. It makes use of deadstock and the latest technical innovations such as foldable rain jackets, which she transformed into cropped puffers with scalloped-edged sleeves. Nylons used were made from ocean waste.

Her Irish roots and fresh focus on menswear also informed her creative approach to knitwear bringing a strong streetwear vibe to grey Aran cable knits, cargo trousers and knitted balaclavas in chartreuse or electric blue. Elsewhere, lab-dipped nylons were custom dyed into saturated shades for tracksuit bottoms topped with abstract printed tees or intarsia knits.

Using the latest technology, her dad’s football jerseys from the 1990s were scanned and inputted by a fashion lab that distorted the scans and transformed them into trompe l’oeil cotton knits. Mixing youthful brio and technical detail with more conventional intricate elements made for a stellar show.

Richard Quinn

Dark couture is how Richard Quinn described his latest collection; “a love letter to silhouette and craft”, a powerful theatrical spectacle from a designer celebrated for ingenuity and creativity. Held in the Royal Horticultural Lindley Hall, draped and carpeted in pink and profusely decorated with flowers, it was an apt location for a designer known for signature botanical prints, billowing shapes and craftsmanship.

One of the first designers to make masks and scrubs for NHS workers in the pandemic and whose latest fans include Venus and Serena Williams, Quinn does nothing by halves. For this show, assembled in less than three weeks, he enlisted the English Chamber Orchestra and the London Bach Choir with Samantha Harvey belting out Olivia Rodrigo’s hit Traitor about betrayal. (Among Quinn’s other achievements, he once played French horn in an orchestra.) Proud parents Patrick and Eileen Quinn were front row.

Fashion as protective armour informed the collection from its opening 1950s-style couture numbers – matching wide-brimmed hats topped figured or swinging floral coats, some with head-to-toe embroideries or in wild ballooning shapes with models toting hat boxes. It was ravishing high drama, though other shapes took a surprising turn being all enveloping and shrouding the models almost completely.

This led to some startling effects like an abstracted trench coat that extended from head to toe and a billowing floor-length fuchsia pink silk gown like a burka, but he was making a point about protection.

Another duo, a black dominatrix leading her black latex companion on a leash, underlined other elements of a show that Quinn described as a balance between the dark and the beautiful. It ended to deafening applause with Lila Moss, Kate Moss’s 19-year-old daughter, looking wistful in a short white dress with flying feathers, a silver crown and holding a white bouquet.

Simone Rocha

In a reference to her Irish roots, Rocha drew from the ancient Irish saga of the Children of Lir for this winter show, which reworked many of her familiar themes and silhouettes in a highly orchestrated way. Her shapes – sloping shoulders, elaborately constructed skirts, taut bodices and lavish layering – were a mixture of dark and light tones with detailed hand embellishment and lace decor.

The look was about conceal and reveal – from fragile slip dresses with flying ribbons to heavy ornately stitched blankets that covered and cossetted other layers. It was, as her notes indicated, “an exploration of outerwear and what lies beneath”.

As one who sets trends, what are bound to be copied are her accessories: thigh-high boots studded with pearls, heart-shaped bags, balaclava helmets decorated with pearls and long blood red sequined gloves.

In April she is curating a significant group show in Lismore Castle called Girls Girls Girls, looking at the female gaze from multiple viewpoints. The exhibition draws a thread between celebrated artists and a younger generation. It will run until October 30th, 2022.