This article is part of a series about Irish people who are working in creative fields and living abroad.
Isabella Rose Davey
Copenhagen Fashion Week’s chief operating officer
Isabella Rose Davey cut her fashion teeth on the floor of one of Dublin’s longest-established vintage shops, working in A Store is Born when she was 16, and later in Wild Child, “an institution to many”, in George’s Street Arcade.
Vintage is at the heart of sustainability in fashion, and pushing green standards is a core element of the biannual Copenhagen Fashion Week, of which Davey is now chief operating officer.
“I bring all I learned from my Irish childhood to this role,” says Davey. She spent half her childhood in Ireland, moving from Australia at the age of 10 to Dolphin’s Barn in Dublin.
RM Block
Her family was plunged into the heart of Irish culture, as her art conservator parents worked in two Dublin institutions: her mother in the Old Library of Trinity College Dublin (later to become Davey’s Alma mater), and her father at the National Gallery of Ireland.
Their home was on an “architecturally beautiful” Victorian terrace on South Circular Road. She loved the multicultural area. “We had incredible neighbours, an opera singer on one side, police officers up the road,” she says. The family, as outsiders, were “welcomed with open arms”.
“The Irish play the role of outsider very well, and bring a curiosity and an unabashed fervour to experience new places, and bring people together,” she says. These traits are particularly valuable when working in creative fields such as fashion, she believes.
When you don’t have things handed to you, you have to be creative, think of your feet, to generate new concepts and ideas, and Irish people have the ability to do all of that
— Isabella Rose Davey
After graduating from Trinity with a degree in history of art and architecture in 2014, Davey moved to London to pursue a career in fashion. “Ireland felt like a very small place,” she says. She landed a role with the British Fashion Council, which organises London Fashion Week. As part of the role, her focus – which she maintains to this day – was on emerging designers and supporting new talent. This “incredibly niche” experience helped her to move to Copenhagen Fashion Week (CFW) in 2020, working her way up to becoming chief operating officer in 2024.
CFW brings together brands, buyers, industry and press, and in 2020, it became the first global fashion week to introduce strict sustainability requirements. It has grown in importance in the industry calendar globally, and is now described as the fifth fashion week, after New York, London, Milan and Paris.
Davey comes across many Irish people playing key creative roles in her industry. “There is something about Irishness: curiosity, cordiality and connecting with people,” she says. While Irish people are known as talkers and storytellers, what holds most value is the fact that they are “great listeners”.
“When you don’t have things handed to you, you have to be creative, think of your feet, to generate new concepts and ideas, and Irish people have the ability to do all of that.”
One big difference creatively between Dublin and Copenhagen is that “in Denmark, people leave and come back”, says Davey. While Ireland’s global web is huge, keeping people connected is “the one thing Ireland is missing ... what is the hook to bring them back, what is the connection?”
She thinks Ireland needs “fresh creative leadership”. Despite bodies with “huge funding”, she says creatively they are not “thinking ambitiously or in a modern way”. While Ireland is “synonymous with craft and design”, its thinking is “very much rooted in the old perspective”, which limits the potential for growth.
Davey still returns regularly to visit family and friends in Ireland. Her parents live in rural Co Wicklow and she lectures at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin.
With a similar population to Ireland, Denmark has “that sense of community” she missed in London, while still offering “so many opportunities”. There are many welcome differences between Copenhagen and Dublin. The Danish capital has many woman leaders across various sectors, and it is empowering and inspiring to see women in leadership roles picking up their children from school and childcare, she says. Being able to cycle to work in a city with relatively few cars has also been “transformative” for her.
But the biggest learning curve for Davey has been adapting to the Danish way of “working to live, not living to work”. Sometimes in Dublin people say their “exhausted” as if it’s a badge of honour, but the “Danes look down on the concept of always being busy”, she says.
Irish creatives abroad
- An Irishwoman in New York: ‘You can be who you want here if you learn to climb the ladder’
- Irish director in London: ‘You find yourself connected to Irish people, there’s a familiarity’
- An Irish architect in Berlin: ‘Freedom people here have to be themselves gave me courage’
- ‘For many, growing up queer in Ireland was a trauma almost – they ran away
- ‘In Dublin people say they’re exhausted. Danes look down on idea of always being busy’
- Seán Burke, Irish comedian in London: ‘My accent goes a long way when I’m on stage’
Are you Irish and living in another country? Would you like to share your experience in writing or by interview? You can use the form below, or email abroad@irishtimes.com. Irish Times Abroad submission guidelines here.
