In an exciting time for menswear, Irish designers are playing a prominent role internationally from Jonathan Anderson at Dior, to Kid Super in New York, Robyn Lynch in London and now Luke Rainey in Berlin.
Rainey, who is from Portrush on the north Co Antrim coast but now based in Berlin, calls his brand Dagger, and describes his clothing as “emotionally intelligent design”. It is gaining traction and interest, and is stocked in many concept stores in Europe and farther afield. “A dagger is used to mark the beginning and end of a ceremony or ritual. The symbolism is marking the end of one life and the beginning of another for me,” he says.
His collections are inspired by his teenage years growing up gay in Portrush in the mid-2000s.
“It may seem like a luxury destination now, but it wasn’t like that then,” he says. “Portrush was a skateboarding town. It wasn’t cool. Skateboarders were looked down on as degenerates and were treated as such – when subcultures like that appear, creativity grows and there is a big parallel between skateboarding and the queer community. It was a tough place growing up – you felt there was only one of you.
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“I escaped from a young age and drew fashion,” he says, remembering how he sketched a chainmail dress by Jean Paul Gaultier. “My mother had all these fashion magazines and the glamorous images in them were so different to my life that the fantasy helped me deal with my reality, which was the opposite of what those images portrayed. I came out at 14 and went to a very rough school where I got abused every single day.” He remembers the moment he stood up to the sniggering remarks and just said, “Yes, I am gay, and it gave me such a sense of power and liberation. Things changed after that. I was no longer the joke and I could look more to my dreams.”
Dropping out of school at the age of 16, he worked in a variety of shops and signed up to a modelling agency at 19, “which was a real introduction to the fashion world. Modelling broke my heart and was a deep disappointment. I remember being with 400 boys on a Dior casting and being crippled with fear.”
After that he worked in the Dover Street Market in London, which was the first to stock Demna’s controversial Balenciaga collection. “It was a crash course in streetwear and contemporary fashion and it was an amazing time to be part of that,” he says.
Before moving to Berlin, he had enjoyed the “casual vibe of the London scene when everyone in fashion used to gather in the George and Dragon pub”, but when that started to fade, he decided he wanted a slower life, so he moved to Berlin where he now lives in the bustling borough of Neukolln. “And then I fell in love with a German and we have been together for five years.”
His partner, Marvin, is a stylist who works with indie boy bands.
When Rainey lost his job in a concept store at the peak of Covid and was handed a letter ending All the Best and €300, he bought T-shirts and a screen printer, and started printing them with that statement.
“Friends bought them at first to support me, and then when people saw them on the street or on DJs, they wanted to buy them. So [the brand] just grew and grew organically,” he says. The pandemic, combined with his retail experience, forced him to reflect on what he could do, and he decided to branch out into design.
The dagger logo was deliberate, and with the help
of friends, models, photographers and production companies – “for no money because they believed in what I was doing” – Dagger started to sharpen. “We started with tees, then dagger denim, underwear, socks, accessories, leather belts and our signature slogan tee, hoodies, sweaters and gradually adding more luxury, leather jackets and jewellery. We are working with a factory in China as well as with specialist handmade jewellers making sterling silver in Berlin to have a local supply. China is in the forefront of technology and skills and I am proud to produce there.”
He has recently shown the collection in Paris for the second time. “In the first season we had 13 appointments which is very good for a relatively unknown brand, but with the second season just now we had 35 appointments with grade A stores internationally. Feedback was great from Japan and Italy, and we now have sales agents globally, so now I can cast my net wider as a Berlin brand selling internationally.” Earlier this year Dagger was invited to show at Berlin Fashion Week by the Fashion Council of Germany.
“Berlin is becoming what London Fashion Week used to be – the raw energy and spirit is there and it’s a bit kinder than London, though a little more expensive. What I do is a purposeful approach to design, it’s never design for design’s sake, it’s me reflecting on a feeling that I want to talk about and translate into a concept, so I think our authenticity makes us different to other street brands. Although the name of the brand is harsh, the messages in our designs are fuelled by genuine emotion and story.”
