{"id":321659,"date":"2026-02-28T10:40:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T10:40:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/321659\/"},"modified":"2026-02-28T10:40:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T10:40:09","slug":"i-loved-being-on-the-shop-floor-i-thought-my-parents-had-bought-harrods-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/321659\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I loved being on the shop floor. I thought my parents had bought Harrods\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sunburst-motif mirrors welcome customers ringing the bell of Louise Kennedy<\/a>\u2019s four-storey Georgian Dublin <\/a>townhouse. Inside, the ground floor gifting rooms are spotted with art deco-inspired bottle-stoppers and crystal-adorned ceramic egg candles. Purples and pinks pop out from the rails of the first-floor fashion rooms, where later I spot the black lurex tweed biker jacket Kennedy is wearing for our interview.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s sadly no sign of the star of her Instagram page, Paddy Paws, the 11-year-old miniature Schnauzer who has \u201ctwo mummies\u201d: the designer and her younger sister, public relations guru Caroline Kennedy.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s beloved in the office. I think every office needs a dog \u2013 well, I would say a schnauzer because of their intelligence and chutzpah. We have clients who literally will say, \u2018What are you doing with [the likeness of] Paddy this season?\u2019 He\u2019s been on a sweater, he\u2019s been bejewelled, he\u2019s been woven into a little mini-skirt. I\u2019m not obsessed.\u201d<\/p>\n

She apologises for all the steps as she leads me up the staircase and we leave the grandeur of her luxury brand\u2019s elegant Merrion Square<\/a> store, open since 1998, for the comfort of her home, where I feel abruptly cautious about letting my pen anywhere near the sofa.<\/p>\n

When Kennedy is in town she lives above the shop, on the top two floors of the restored building, though she is \u201calways on a plane\u201d, spending half her life in London, close to the Belgravia store she opened in 2000. She is often in Italy, where her clothes and handbags are made, and in New Delhi, where the hand-beading and embroidery is completed and where she could \u201ceasily spend 70 nights a year\u201d.<\/p>\n

In January she was in Milan for the \u201cespecially busy\u201d Milano Unica, a high-end textile and accessories fair showcasing fabrics for spring-summer 2027.<\/p>\n

With this year\u2019s spring-summer collection arriving in and work on 2027\u2019s clothes now under way, Kennedy and her design team have also been busy tweaking the autumn-winter 2026 collection, placing their final fabric orders so it can be stocked in London before the summer.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re very fortunate that our flagship store in London is extremely busy from May or June onwards, when a small segment of our Middle Eastern clients come to get away from the heat of the Gulf. So we like to have our major hero pieces for autumn-winter in early,\u201d she explains.<\/p>\n

This is not how she tends to shop herself.<\/p>\n

\"FashionFashion designer Louise Kennedy at her Merrion Square premises. Photograph: Alan Betson <\/p>\n

\u201cI like to try to stay on season. If you\u2019re going on holiday in September and decide to buy some nice beachwear, there\u2019s nothing worse than walking into a department store in August and finding it\u2019s all cashmere coats and rollneck sweaters.\u201d<\/p>\n

But fashion is about evolving to meet the wants of your clients \u2013 it\u2019s \u201cdialogue\u201d. It\u2019s also about looking to the future, which she is now doing in more ways than one.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Is your wardrobe suffering from \u2018stuffocation\u2019? \u2018We own 400% more than what we did 20 years ago\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

When asked what she is most proud of, she cites the continuity of having remained in business since 1983, the year her graduate collection was picked up by Brown Thomas<\/a>, where her clothes are sold to this day.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would hope to think I can stay involved,\u201d she says of her wholly owned company. \u201cWe\u2019ve had many offers for buy-ins and at some stage we will do a buy-in, but I hope it\u2019s somebody that will bring not just finance, but expertise.\u201d<\/p>\n

To sell her business, or part of it, she would need to receive \u201cthe right offer\u201d, she says, not one that risks compromising her place in the market or jeopardising her long-term relationships with mills across Europe.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve seen other brands sell, and if it\u2019s a VC [venture capital firm], they tend to look at how to drive profitability, and they touch the quality. The one thing I always say to people \u2013 the thing that has taken us through recessions, pandemics, times when cashflow was tight \u2013 is never touch the product,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you in any way diminish your quality and what it stands for, it\u2019s very difficult to bring it back.\u201d<\/p>\n

She has seen VCs buy into brands only to tell them \u201cno, you can\u2019t invest that amount per metre\u201d and \u201cyou\u2019re not spending that on a button\u201d.<\/p>\n

I learn a lot from Kennedy during the two hours I spend with her, and some of it is about buttons.<\/p>\n

\u201cButtons are a major factor in what we do and we often have clients who will say, \u2018Oh my god, I just love your buttons.\u2019 We work with a third-generation Milanese company that makes jewellery as buttons, and it\u2019s terrifying, the cost of a button, but it looks it,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Craftmanship and embellishments, and the price tags that follow, are part of the exclusivity of the brand \u2013 they\u2019re what her clients both appreciate and expect from her.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do work with the best cashmere mills and best weavers in Italy and that obviously denotes where we sit price-wise. A lot of our garments are pure silk-lined, and our buttons can be a couple of hundred euros each, but they\u2019re also what makes what we do distinctive,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\"LouiseLouise Kennedy designs from 2019. Photograph: Alan Betson <\/p>\n

\u201cIf it\u2019s a fabric with three hues, then we\u2019ll have fun pulling those hues from a Swarovski card to enable the stones to sit in harmony with the fabric.\u201d<\/p>\n

Later she emails to say the brand, which has sold an eponymous eau de parfum since 2013, will this year add a limited-edition pure perfume, \u201ca highly concentrated composition that will of course retail at a high price point\u201d.<\/p>\n

Kennedy describes her brand as niche with a global audience, and her team works to secure the repeat custom of clients, who range from women executives to elite American travellers to figures in the bloodstock industry. \u201cIt\u2019s not come in, shop, goodbye,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Referrals are important for attracting new clients \u2013 as is location.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe windows of London are our pages of Vogue,\u201d she says of the Belgravia store, which is surrounded by the luxury hotels and residences of SW1. \u201cWe do want to look at possibly a second store in London.\u201d<\/p>\n

This year she plans to host a series of \u201ctrunk shows\u201d \u2013 events where fashion brands connect directly with customers \u2013 in the US, while the company is also \u201cactively looking\u201d at the Middle East<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"ModelsModels at the launch of the Louise Kennedy’s 2018 collection. Photograph: Cyril Byrne <\/p>\n

\u201cInstead of us waiting for them to come to us, we are looking into the licences needed and how we might go about Qatar<\/a> in particular. We would have a lot of the sovereign family shopping with us. Kuwait is also a good market for us, and Abu Dhabi.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sales through her online platform are growing, meanwhile, and her outlet at Kildare Village helps bring in younger customers.<\/p>\n

Financially, the company \u2013 which employs a young team of about 40 people \u2013 is \u201cvery comfortable\u201d targeting \u201csmall growth\u201d each year, and has bounced back from the pandemic<\/a>, with revenues at her London and Dublin stores increasing in 2025 despite a decline in US visitors to Europe.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we have plans in place, because in 2026 we do want to see a stronger lift.\u201d<\/p>\n

Later she mentions her decision to do a \u201ccomplete pivot\u201d away from her wholesale business when she lost overseas clients during the 2008 recession. Was that the most disorienting year?<\/p>\n

\u201cOh my goodness. Yes, absolutely, because that crash happened when a lot of stock had already been shipped. Not everybody reneged on paying, but we definitely lost some very big accounts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fashion can be a testing industry, but it is also a fabulous one, says 65-year-old Kennedy. \u201cNo day is the same, every week is different, and it happens to suit me.\u201d<\/p>\n

She was born in 1960 to the late Jimmy and Rita Kennedy, who lived in Puckane, Co Tipperary. Her father, a retired hurler, worked for Minch Norton Maltings, which brought the family to Kilkenny, then Cork. When she was 10, they returned to Tipperary to live in Thurles, where her mother had been left a 50 per cent stake in her family\u2019s drapery business, JK Moloney.<\/p>\n

\"FashionFashion designer Louise Kennedy at her Merrion Square premises. Photograph: Alan Betson <\/p>\n

\u201cI think of all the five kids, I would be the one who loved to be on the shop floor. I thought it was Harrods<\/a> my parents had bought.\u201d<\/p>\n

She wasn\u2019t thinking about fashion design as a career, but she loved colour, loved texture, and after her time boarding at the Brigidine Convent in Abbeyleix, she studied art as part of a year-long course in Dublin \u2013 \u201cI won\u2019t say it was a finishing school\u201d \u2013 and adored it. She started in the College of Marketing and Design, thinking interiors would be her focus, but when she ended up moving to the Grafton Academy of Fashion Design, her calling became clear.<\/p>\n

After graduating, she was poised to move to New York to gain experience when her clothes featured in an International Wool Secretariat showcase organised by Eddie Shanahan, now a retail consultant. When a Brown Thomas buyer, Marie McCarthy, asked to see her graduate collection, Kennedy brought a clothes rail to their Westbury Hotel meeting and asked a friend from home to model some of the pieces.<\/p>\n

\u201cMarie turned round and said she had never done this before, but she was going to give me an order. And I had six months to find somebody to make it for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

It all feels as real to her now as it did then, she says.<\/p>\n

In September 1983, her designs were displayed in two windows of the old Brown Thomas store on Grafton Street, where Marks & Spencer now stands. Winning the designer of the year accolade at the Late Late Show fashion awards in 1989 was another step forward. By the end of the decade, she had well and truly arrived.<\/p>\n

\"MaryMary Robinson chose a Louise Kennedy two-piece suit in purple silk moire for her inauguration in 1990 <\/p>\n

Then came \u201cthe Mary Robinson<\/a> moment\u201d. In 1990 Kennedy was asked to design the inauguration outfit for Ireland\u2019s first woman president. It was \u201cthe ultimate compliment\u201d, she says of being invited to Robinson\u2019s home to discuss what became a two-piece suit in purple silk moire \u2013 a signature blast of Kennedy colour amid the sea of greys and blacks at Dublin Castle.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were only six years in the marketplace, so it was a big responsibility and a tremendous honour, and it was global news,\u201d Kennedy says.<\/p>\n

She has also dressed Mary McAleese<\/a>, while President Catherine Connolly<\/a> wore her Maya coat, Orelia blouse and Julie trousers for her inauguration last November. Kennedy says it was Michelle Curtin, head of personal shopping for womenswear in Brown Thomas, who was \u201cvery involved in pulling the look together\u201d for Connolly, and when I say it was striking that, though the style differed, the colour echoed Robinson\u2019s suit, she says this was by chance.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe happened to have a purple collection. It\u2019s part of the main line collection \u2013 it\u2019s on our website.\u201d<\/p>\n

Purple does have special resonance for women, she notes. \u201cIt\u2019s an empowering colour, a strong colour, and it has great associations for women in power thanks to the suffragette movement.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Instagram feedback to Connolly\u2019s look was also \u201cwarm and effusive\u201d, she says. \u201cYeah, it was really lovely.\u201d<\/p>\n

I mention that not everyone appreciated the inclusion of fashion details in reports on Connolly\u2019s inauguration, believing it sexist despite the fact that her male predecessor\u2019s wardrobe was often remarked upon. Does she think there is more sensitivity around the discussion of fashion when it concerns women, almost as if there is that residual fear of not being taken seriously?<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is more interest [in women\u2019s fashion], I suppose. But I don\u2019t think it\u2019s belittling the fact that it\u2019s a female in the office.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"PresidentPresident Catherine Connolly, wearing Louise Kennedy’s Maya coat, Orelia blouse and Julie trousers, inspects the Guard of Honour at Dublin Castle after her inauguration. Photograph: Sam Boal\/Collins Photos <\/p>\n

She has a wishlist of high-profile women she would love to dress, though she\u2019s not rushing to divulge names. \u201cIt\u2019s not about how they look, it\u2019s what they stand for and what they represent. That interests me maybe more.\u201d<\/p>\n

She has loved dressing professional women ever since US designer Donna Karan popularised her \u201cseven easy pieces\u201d \u2013 what would now be called a \u201ccapsule wardrobe\u201d \u2013 in 1985.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just loved that concept, I thought it was so clever. And that\u2019s why I\u2019ve always loved looking after female executives and women who travel. It\u2019s, like, how do you design a collection that can take you from desk to dinner?\u201d<\/p>\n

Each collection starts with a whiteboard and a set of \u201ctried and classic shapes\u201d (though they also evolve), with newness incorporated through updates to fabrics and colours, and the union of textures and prints.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Irish heritage meets Danish flair in Kerry designer\u2019s debut collectionOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re always learning, every season,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Women aren\u2019t slaves to fashion to the extent they were in previous eras \u2013 which is fine, as her brand caters to \u201cinvestment dressers\u201d \u2013 while women professionals are no longer obliged to stick to obvious derivations of the male template. <\/p>\n

\u201cShe can embrace print, she can embrace colour. When I was graduating, a lot of women dressed almost in men\u2019s tailoring. When I look back on our Eighties\u2019 imagery, I go, \u2018Oh my God, the size of the shoulder pads.\u2019 Now there are trends that drive that big, oversized boxy shape, but at the time it wasn\u2019t a trend, it was how they were constructed.\u201d<\/p>\n

We also talk about how there isn\u2019t an event-specific \u201cwedding look\u201d for guests any more.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf people are investing in clothes that cost a lot of money, they don\u2019t want it to scream that it\u2019s a wedding outfit. They want to know that a feathered skirt could be worn with a little white tee somewhere else,\u201d she says, alluding to what\u2019s known as high-low dressing.<\/p>\n

\"AreAre Lingus cabin crew members Oisin Leong, Aoife Costelloe, Victoria Elmore, David Rodgers, Eszter Dornfeld and Byron Kumbula in the uniform designed by Louise Kennedy.
\nPhotograph: Dara Mac D\u00f3naill <\/p>\n

Kennedy has had the distinction of twice receiving the contract to update the uniforms of her \u201cpreferred airline\u201d, Aer Lingus, in designs unveiled in 1998 and 2020. The second time around \u2013 in what were the first Aer Lingus<\/a> uniforms to give women cabin crew the option of trousers \u2013 she refreshed its green shade, while also receiving the go-ahead to bring in \u201cmidnight navy\u201d as a complementary colour.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think [the navy] is very flattering, but there was no way management would have wanted all midnight navies, because then you\u2019re up against Air France, you\u2019re up against British Airways.\u201d<\/p>\n

Along her journey through fashion there have been many other proud moments, from her commission to design robes for Supreme Court judges to her collaborations with Irish brands such as Tipperary Crystal. \u201cAny opportunity to move outside your own domain is fascinating,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

When I ask who her influences were, the first people she mentions are her parents.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy father was a role model. He instilled the importance of honesty and integrity in any business relationship, and he was so straight. My mum, I think, despite her illness [rheumatoid arthritis], had an absolute passion for what she did, and encouraged all of us to go out, create our own careers and be independent.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Stylist Corina Gaffey: A fashion app changed the way I dressOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Her brother Christopher works with the company, while sister Rosemary lives in the US. Susan Kennedy, their eldest sister, died unexpectedly last July.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was a big, big shock for us. We were five, we are now four, and it\u2019s really devastating.\u201d<\/p>\n

When I ask if there is anyone in particular in her life at the moment, she laughs and says, \u201cI never go there, Laura,\u201d adding that there\u2019s no one she\u2019s missing out. She is \u201cextremely close\u201d to Caroline, who is younger by four years \u2013 \u201cthere is no one like her for sage advice\u201d \u2013 with their bond dating back to their boarding school years.<\/p>\n

\u201cWould I say it was our finest hour when we shared during college? Maybe not. Because I\u2019d have saved up for that particular pair of boots and I\u2019d see her skedaddle out wearing them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kennedy\u2019s love for fashion and hard work seems undimmed. \u201cThere\u2019s no such thing as a day off. Try as you might,\u201d she says. But this relentlessness has its reward. \u201cWhen I go to any of the mills and watch the collection being woven, it\u2019s fabulous. Absolutely fabulous.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sunburst-motif mirrors welcome customers ringing the bell of Louise Kennedy\u2019s four-storey Georgian Dublin townhouse. Inside, the ground floor…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":321660,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[601,34320,3656,4507,93,149574,61,2568,60,102,121448,709,15692,5785,90974,4444],"class_list":["post-321659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-aer-lingus","tag-brown-thomas","tag-catherine-connolly","tag-dublin-2","tag-entertainment","tag-harrods","tag-ie","tag-india","tag-ireland","tag-italy","tag-louise-kennedy","tag-magazine","tag-mary-robinson","tag-mary-mcaleese","tag-merrion-square","tag-qatar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=321659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321659\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/321660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=321659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=321659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=321659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}