Sinéad O'Dwyer didn't mind wearing a uniform to school. Growing up in Tullamore in Ireland's County Offaly, the future designer considered her environment a backdrop for early sartorial experimentation. The school uniform still lingers in her design language: Pleated skirts and exposed midriffs are clear nods to a schoolgirl aesthetic, yet in O'Dwyer's vision, the sexuality is entirely grown up.
It's this knowing command of charisma and craft that recently earned O'Dwyer the Zalando Visionary Award, a prize that will help her make her Copenhagen Fashion Week debut. It's an honor that recognizes designers who challenge the fashion industry’s status quo, which O'Dwyer has been doing since founding her eponymous label in 2018. With her diverse runways, range of clothing sizes, and focus on sustainability, hers is a vision that celebrates the beauty of women and femmes in clothes, her work only enhancing its wearer through sexy contrast and structure.
Ahead of her Copenhagen runway show, O’Dwyer sat down to talk gateway thongs, the state of the industry, and what's next for her brand.
Who taught you how to dress?
A lot of my style was formed by the fact that I wore a uniform from age 3 to 19. I didn't mind wearing a uniform at all. All Irish schools wear uniforms. It was an equalizer in a way; I didn't come from a place where everyone would have been equal financially at all. I grew up in the countryside, so it was always cold: Half the schools were also prefabs. That's my beginning point of learning to dress: I'm in this uniform and really cold, but I'm still going to roll the skirt. That was what everyone did. It was this weird signifier of sexiness before I even knew what sexiness was, trying to wear as little clothing as possible. I think about the origins of my style in those terms because growing up, Irish teenagers would wear as little clothing as possible, even if it was freezing or raining. You won't see Irish teenagers with raincoats. Like, "This is my chance to wear this halter neck, and I'll be wearing it." That was always being sexy even though it's where they wore a lot of tracksuits as well. Tracksuits were sexy.
Would you say you have a uniform now?
I repeat the same clothes all the time. Last week, a friend commented, “Oh, I really love your work looks,” and I was like, “What work looks?” Then I realized, Yeah, I suppose I have a very particular eight items I wear to work. Because I'm making clothes all the time, I'm so precious with them. If something is nice, I don't want to wear it because then I might ruin it. I cycle everywhere. My nice clothes are any clothes that we made because it feels like such a mission to do production. I have one shirt I wear all the time. It's green dead stock from the seventies, and I really like that. We make this cotton elastic tank that you don't have to wear a bra with that's really comfortable, so I wear that all the time. I like to wear this leather wrap skirt over my tailored trousers, and I have these silk wool trousers that we made in Spring/Summer 2023 that I wear all the time.
Throughout your collections, there's always this contrast of softness with tougher details. What draws you to this juxtaposition?
In how I view my personality and my physicality, I'm very drawn to that contrast, especially on non-runway model bodies. There is a tendency to depict women with bigger breasts or like just any woman that's not U.K. size 10 or below in certain ways. It's interesting to play with the softness alongside a harder layer and then rethink the silhouettes along the way. That language is [in the] pattern cutting: I still do all the pattern cutting for the brand, and that's always the tension. I'm trying to find something that kind of feels a bit harsh and also quite easy but is actually accommodating a lot of support and structure.
When I was quite young, like 11 or 12, I had an obsession with lingerie. Nothing fancy, like really cheap lingerie. I don't even know where I got it, but I know friends would always give it to me. There was this obsession with what is a signifier for sexiness. I did ballet when I was a child, and when I was 10 or 11, I was told I had to get a thong or wear no underwear for an exam. I was like, great. I got a thong—a very basic one—and then I was like, Now that I have this, I can get anything I want. It was the gateway.
The gateway thong.
Yes! So that was a beginning point of me dressing semi-inappropriately for one or two years, just really enjoying what I perceived as some weird power I had through lingerie, but I definitely didn't have since I was a really nerdy 11-year-old. I definitely wasn't walking in the room with sexual charisma.
Creating clothing for people of differing shapes, sizes, and abilities has always been an integral part of your vision. The pendulum has been swinging in the fashion world, and models are returning to a very thin look. You've stayed the course no matter the trend cycle. I'm curious if you've observed the swinging of the pendulum and how it makes you feel?
I've seen it to a certain extent. Before, even though there was some diversity on the runway, I didn't see that reflected in any design development or production. I can get quite single-minded about what I do sometimes, and I maybe appreciate representation less than I would have when I was younger because now I’m so in it. The reason I do the work I do is directly because I wasn't buying luxury, but I was so affected by the imagery, the beauty, and the fashion industry. It's just going to take a long time, and the creative directors are going to have to be either queer people or women, because if you've always been someone who could buy whatever, it is harder to have that empathy. It has to come from something quite deeply rooted. When there are more brands with founders who care about community issues, if those people can be given more support to grow to the point where they could make it, they may one day then be in charge of a larger thing. That's what's going to make the impact, having people in positions of power that feel empathy and have direct experience with the issues that the luxury fashion system has created.
I wanted to touch on your Spring/Summer 2024 "Friends and Family" campaign. What's so captivating about your vision is that even with a coquette bent, it's always clear that it's a grown person who is embodying this sexuality. Not only were you shooting your friends and highlighting them visually, but in some of the posts on Instagram you also had their commentary on your work. How did you conceptualize this campaign, and why was it important for you to include their voices?
I'm really glad that you said it's not girly. I don't dislike girliness, but I feel like that playfulness within people who look over 23 is great. I just wanted to have some fun with my friends and have everyone try stuff on and have some fun together. My wife took the photos—she’s a photographer. We did shoot everyone in one day in my studio, which was mental. It was really fun because everyone knows each other. I asked any creative collaborators we work with if they wanted to be part of it, some of the models I'm closest to, and loads of my friends. Some of the people were some of my best customers as well: I think it's fun to be the star of a campaign from which you've bought clothes.
What made you decide to show in Copenhagen this year?
I'm so excited about winning the Zalando Visionary Award because it's championing someone who's trying to do something to change the industry, which is why I was really excited to apply. I can't believe I won. It's a much larger show than I've done before, because it's more stand-alone and it's outdoors. My wife is actually Danish, so all her family can come, our casting director is also Danish, and we have a lot of Danish friends. I also really love the focus of sustainability that the Copenhagen Fashion Week has.
Can you tell us anything about the vibe of your latest collection?
We're collaborating this season with a Japanese shoe brand called Grounds, and we're going to have a new fabric category, which you'll have to discover. I lived in North Carolina for one year when I was a teenager, and because of the outdoor venue and also the hot summer we're having, I’ve been reminiscing a bit on that. That's quite typical of me to have some sort of nostalgic reference; whether that translates so much in the clothing is not so important to me. It's more the feeling.
What's the most underrated item of clothing? Most overrated?
Underrated: Bolero. Overrated: Smock dresses.
Whose closet would you pull a Bling Ring for?
An Vandevorst and Filip Arickx.
What are you excited for next?
I'm going to factories literally the week after the show—new factories that are doing a lot in terms of innovation, production, and sustainability. That's how I love to work, to know what machines there are and work with them.
