I was in awe upon entering Dublin’s Smock Alley as it opened its doors in late November to Ireland’s vibrant and ever-growing fashion community, for the grand finale weekend of Ireland’s second year of showcasing its very own fashion week. The space was transformed into a vibrant tapestry of talent which wove together and showcased some of Ireland’s best fashion and design talent.
Having had the pleasure of attending the event both this year and last, I was stunned to observe its growth in the space of just a year. What started as a vision which actually blossomed at our very own Trinity Fashion Society’s annual fashion show in 2023 amongst a handful of Irish fashion designers, has flourished into the spectacle which was this year’s jam-packed week for Irish fashion and design.
The grand finale weekend which I attended in Smock Alley showcased a runway show, live dance and musical performances such as that from the brilliant Irish girl band ‘Biird”, poetry installations and of course the twenty plus designers who were the thread which really sewed it all together. Being able to peruse all these incredible designers in the same space at the same time conjured in me the feeling of how I imagine Aladdin must have felt roaming his cave.
The full extensive list of the creators who partook in the event can be found on Dublin Independent Fashion Week’s Instagram and online. I feel it goes without saying that all of the event’s creators’ abundance of talent took my breath away, and so as much as I’d love to discuss all of them in detail in this article, I unfortunately don’t have time to write a novel– not today anyway. However, I shall touch on a couple of the event’s creators who stood out to me in particular from speaking with them.
Aoife Lifestyle is an utterly inspirational brand with an even more inspirational woman, Aoife Rooney, as its founder. Rooney created the award-winning sustainable and circular fashion brand on a foundational focus on burgeoning kindness towards our planet and community. Her space at the event emanated elegance, with every single one of her luxurious garments appearing as art pieces in themselves, catching the eye with every turn of the head. Now imagine that times twenty expanding through the whole of Smock Alley.
Aside from the event’s main feature of the fashion designers themselves, were several gorgeous creative installations, such as one which ironically really caught my attention due to its seeming subtleness, yet on closer inspection was such a beautiful thoughtful touch which worked to elevate the whole event. Molly May O’Leary identifies as a storyteller, singer and poet; this she most certainly is, and then so much more again. To have to reduce O’Leary’s work with words to mere words themselves, would be to say she takes words and turns them into art, both visually and linguistically. So when she was tasked with writing a poem on the work of every featured designer at the event, the results were simply delightful as she enabled the designers to understand and appreciate the perception of their work afresh through the beautiful medium of her poetry. On a wider scale to anyone who was involved in the event in any capacity, O’Learly provided a visual aid which so ardently captured the unique essence of every single designer.
All in all, these individual unique creators coming together to showcase their work in one place was pure magic, the pinnacle of Irish creation, which was Dublin Independent Fashion Week. At the event’s stylish bar I raised a glass to this year being the biggest and best Fashion Week Ireland has shown the world yet; I hope I find myself clinking to the same toasting this time next year.
