The Irish designer studied in the Netherlands and the US before starting her eponymous fashion label in 2018. Earlier this year, she was announced as the second winner of Zalando Visionary Award, and the prize included showing her new collection at Copenhagen Fashion Week.
— My journey so far has been really interesting, she says. In my first collection, it was all handmade pieces. There are still a lot of handmade, with very high price points, created together with artisans. Over the years, I’ve been getting more clarity in my vision, what I want to offer, and how I want to contribute to the fashion system.
Other parts of the collection, such as knitwear and wovens, are made in the UK.
— Obviously, production has a lot of challenges, especially in a world where I suppose more people don’t really want to sew anymore. It’s interesting just to notice that. Brexit has also made it really difficult for the factory owners that I work with to get skilled workers, so it’s just about trying to find new factories and new relationships that also have sustainable practices.
— I’m going to Portugal this week, to visit some factories that have new, innovative machinery. When winning the Zalando award, I was offered a mentor and have been working with Dio (Kurazawa) from The Bear Scouts, so I’m going with him to some factories he’s in partnership with. His focus is on sustainability in the supply chain. I think that’s the way forward — finding relationships to make things more environmentally sustainable even for me as a small business.
”Production has a lot of challenges, especially in a world where I suppose more people don’t really want to sew anymore”
How would you define the brands and your aesthetics?
— It’s about how I see the world through the lens of my friends and family who look like lots of different sorts of people. I would describe the brand as sensual, strong, and very tactile.
Who do you identify as your consumer or target group?
— The muses on the runway. Strong women. Every season, I work with new models and those are the people that I want to dress. They’re also the ones who want to wear the clothes but I also have bespoke clients that are all shapes and sizes. In general, the way I work is for everyone, and that’s the feedback I’ve gotten. It’s not for everyone, but for everyone who likes the aesthetic of the brand.
O’Dwyer is based in London and the diversity in the city in general, and in her community in particular, has also put a clear mark on the mentioned aesthetics.
— In my community, everyone has friends and family who look different, in different shapes and sizes, and I think luxury fashion often doesn’t represent that. I started the brand reflecting on conversations, especially with my sister. I remember her making very particular comments about her body when we were much younger — that she had a larger chest than me. ’I want to look like this but I can’t because I have bigger boobs,’ she said. The idea that you’re limited by your physicality and that you can’t wear certain things because of your shape or size, was interesting to me. I’m often thinking about, ’What have I not seen on this sort of person?’ And what would they like? When I meet a new model and think about their body shape, and want to create something they might like to wear, is a beginning point of inspiration for me.
A large part of her work is also aimed at challenging conventional supply chains by creating her own ones.
— To offer a broad size range, you need to have many sample sizes — you can’t just have one. Every season, I try to have iterations of similar pieces across 1 to 5 sample sizes, so that I’m ready for production. I’m aware that once you put all the money into the sampling, you are very limited time-wise, and there’s not much money left. So, your production development is based on your sampling and you’re using that as a beginning point. You need to have the size range ready to sell to the buyers — you can’t offer something that you haven’t even trialled in the sample sizes.
— This is not how luxury works. Luxury works with one sample size, so, generally, the larger sizes are not very good. If you work that way, you have to do it very differently — start earlier, and have people who want to buy that range. Otherwise, you’re just constantly wasting money. I suppose that for me, the way forward is having my own sales channels to be my strongest. This, I believe, will take time because infrastructure-wise, it’s very challenging.
Yes, supply chain is challenging, especially these days.
— Yes. I’ve always done different (sample) sizes. Then, I started refining how I would offer those sizes season by season in a clever way, where I’m not making each style five times. Instead, I’m designing in categories and then deciding to do the different pieces in different sizes in order to cover a specific shape so that I can do all styles in all sizes. I try and organise the collection into parts and then plan the sizing category so that I fit the elements of everything across lots of sizes.
Have you been inspired by any industry colleague to work like this?
— No, it’s definitely not common. It’s more expensive. It becomes very difficult. When I work with showrooms and my samples are all different sizes, I have to have so many models in the showroom, which inevitably, I don’t have because I can’t afford it. I just have one or two, so sometimes, you can’t try it on. It is practically challenging, but I think it’s worth it.
Do you experience a shift in the buyers’ mindset compared to a few years ago?
— I’m not sure. Browns has always been very supportive, buying up to size 20, which has been really good. But I know that a lot of wholesalers are struggling right now, and it will take many seasons for shops to invest in this customer. They need to gain the trust of the customer, who hasn’t been able to shop somewhere before. It will just take time. I’m sometimes worried that, if there aren’t good sales in these larger sizes the first season, they will think that it didn’t work and get rid of it. But you have to allow that customer to realise slowly that they can come to that store.
And you’ve previously mentioned that it’s a dream that your friends and community can go into a luxury department store to buy all sizes.
— Yes. And I would love that I, myself, could offer that pretty soon, having a core range of, say, four products in size 6 to 30 on my own channels. Not a seasonal one, because in terms of sustainability — especially when you’re doing that many sizes — you don’t want loads of stock. That would be a good start, to start to understand which sizes are most popular, which I already know — certain sizes are very popular — and then produce based on that.
Do you feel that the younger brands are leading the way here, with a new understanding of sizing and body types?
— Yes. In new brands, there are a lot of queer and female founders with a new vision and voice. I’m very inspired by friends of mine who run independent brands! O’Dwyer concludes.
