It’s no secret that luxury fashion has a sizing problem. From the high street to high fashion, most stores are perpetrators of discriminatory sizing with limited offerings. Sinéad O’Dwyer wants to change things with a democratic approach encompassing more body types than the runway has ever seen.
The Irish fashion designer presented her spring/summer 2025 collection at a verdant, harbour-front public garden during Copenhagen Fashion Week on August 7. There were mid- and plus-sized models on the catwalk, cast from agencies and on the streets of Copenhagen. Her sister Katie, her wife, the Danish photographer Ottillie Landmark, and her wife’s grandmother made an appearance too. Blind model and broadcaster Lucy Edwards walked the show with her guide dog. It is a stark contrast to the casting choices at other fashion shows.
More importantly, it’s not just for show, it’s for sale.
“This is the largest show we’ve done to date and the most confident I’ve felt in terms of preparation,” said O’Dwyer ahead of the show.
For O’Dwyer, the objective was simple: introduce new elements to her ever-evolving design process while developing and improving the signatures on which she is basing her brand.
The London-based designer expanded on her signature body-sculpting silhouettes that accentuate and celebrate the beauty of the female form. Within that, she explores the shibari, the Japanese art of rope tying, with intricately woven fabrics. Here, they inform harnesses with short sleeves, mini skirts with flirtatious frills, and her eponymous fitted shirts. The designs create a tension between the erotic and appropriateness that feels transgressive.
O’Dwyer’s upbringing in rural Ireland is felt in shirting, knitwear, and tailoring, referencing Catholic school uniforms, with each category enriched with a sensual contemporary verve. Meanwhile, a new footwear collaboration with Japanese brand Grounds was inspired by Irish dancing shoes.
In a new experiment, she inaugurates denim, intended to evoke carefree summer days and nights. For any designer, new categories are important.
Lucy Edwards at Sinead O’Dwyer’s fashion show. Photo by James Cochrane
O’Dwyer, who hails from Tullamore, Co Offaly, launched her business with an inclusive philosophy in 2018 when she graduated from the Royal College of Art in London. She designs with women, femmes, and gender non-conforming individuals of diverse body types in mind. On the catwalk, sizes range from a UK 4 to 30. In stores, they range from a UK 6 to 20, though O’Dwyer admits uptake for sizes above 12 outside of private orders is slow to take off. Currently, she counts prestigious retailers Dover Street Market London, Browns, and SSENSE as stockists.
O’Dwyer’s runway show in the Danish capital opens her to a new market and audience. It was part of an ongoing partnership between German retailer Zalando and Copenhagen Fashion Week. The Irish designer received the €50,000 Zalando Visionary Prize, praised for challenging traditional standards and for her dedication to fostering meaningful change by consistently designing, developing, and producing clothing for different body sizes, and with an environmentally conscious attitude.
The monetary prize allows her to invest in the supply chain and her direct-to-consumer. She is working with mentor Dio Kurazawa who specialises in sustainable fashion consultancy and supply chain management, giving her unprecedented access to more resources and a new network of experts.
“There were things that I couldn’t do before from designing a collection and producing it. Trying to be an environmentally sustainable business while trying to be a financially sustainable business — especially when we’re trying to sell so many sizes — is difficult.”
Last season, the extended sizing offering at wholesale was reduced to 18 from 20.
“It can be disheartening when you produce such a broad range of sizes and stores don’t buy into them. It means a section of the work isn’t profitable right now but I don’t want to only value it from a monetary perspective. The purpose of my work is not only sales.”
O’Dwyer will use the Zalando prizewinning to build an infrastructure that will allow her to offer extended sizing in the form of a direct-to-consumer capsule collection available on her website that sells core pieces such as shirts, jackets, and trousers.
“When I started I thought that things would happen more quickly in terms of our extended sizing. I was harsh on myself if we weren’t growing massively each season in terms of what we could make. Now, I accept that it’s a long game and I’m happy to wait it out,” she says.
“I believe that what we’re doing is incredibly important. If that’s not reflected in what stores are buying right now, that’s how it is. But it won’t stop me from continuing to work this way. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be the brand that it is.”
Body-positive fashion is a revelation at a time when society is witnessing the proliferation of weight-loss drugs and social media’s preoccupation with a messy, ’90s-inspired lifestyle commonly associated with the ‘heroin chic’ trend.
According to research by Vogue Business, the exclusion of larger body types is rife on the runways. Of 8,800 looks presented across 230 shows and presentations during the autumn/winter 2024 season in February, only 4.5% featured mid- or plus-sized models. In many of those cases, those that did only featured a very small number of diverse body types.
Sinead O’Dwyer at Copenhagen Fashion Week
Casting director Emma Matell, who collaborated with O’Dwyer on casting for the Copenhagen show, says the chasm between performative or tokenistic casting and what is genuinely inclusive deepens every season. Many brands will only include one or a handful of mid- or plus-sized models on the catwalk, if any.
In response to this, she says: “Sinéad’s work is important because she’s the only one doing what she’s doing. Taking different bodies into account in the process of designing luxury fashion is not the ethos of most fashion houses. People who buy luxury fashion, or follow it, can tell the difference between what’s genuine and what’s not.”
Copenhagen Fashion Week is now considered a fashion capital alongside New York, London, Milan, and Paris. Unlike the other four, Copenhagen’s approach to sustainability is much stricter with set guidelines that brands are expected to follow to participate in the fashion week.
Copenhagen Fashion Week CEO Cecilie Thorsmark thinks O’Dwyer was well-suited to the programme.
“As an organisation that is dedicated to fostering a new definition of what a fashion week could look like, Sinéad was an incredible addition to our show roster this season. She has dedicated the bedrock of her business to challenging the fashion system, consistently proving to the industry that we all must continue to push boundaries to cultivate a more inclusive future,” she wrote in an email.
As for the future of body positivity in fashion, O’Dwyer is optimistic.
“More brands are appearing with positive values so, hopefully, it will inspire larger brands. But the biggest challenge for them will be producing fewer styles in more sizes. It’s impossible to create the volume of styles that most brands produce in extended sizing. I would like to see fashion as less about buying more clothes but designing for more bodies.”
O’Dwyer will host a small presentation during London Fashion Week in September when the collection will be on view for press and buyers again.
