Peter O’Brien’s collection for Dunnes Stores is his first summer collection in 10 years. When we meet in Appassionata’s flower-filled shop in Dublin, where it is being photographed before its April 12th launch, he admits in his typical self-deprecating way that he is nervous about it.
“Summer is much more difficult commercially because there is so much more bite in winter – heavier materials, coats. It is harder to capture people in summer and you have to think about races or weddings,” he says, wheeling out the clothes rail.
On many sartorial subjects, he has forthright opinions that are eloquently expressed. Get him going on “special occasions” and he’s off at full speed.
"When I think about that phrase, I have to lie down in a darkened room – it terrifies me because it goes with the matchy-matchy hats, shoes and bags and [it] looks like what the French called en dimanche, too Sundayed up – posh clothes, dressed just to be posh and not to wear what you would wear every day".
So what's wrong with dressing up, we ask? The ritual of dressing up he accepts "and there is a lovely account in The Edwardians by Vita Sackville West about getting ready for a ball and the sound of swishing silk, so I do understand the joy of it. But there is no need to put on a disguise because you have a special occasion. It's like the Queen when she wears thousands of pounds worth of jewellery just as if they were brooches from a high-street store – it's unselfconscious. Just put on my clothes and forget about them," he shrugs.
The collection which features two standout pieces – a black/pink Prince of Wales check summer coat, the fabric from a famous mill in Italy and a long navy silk dress – is a small one in his familiar restricted palette of navy and pale blue double crêpe and what he calls a Marie Antoinette blue green, “a rather indefinable colour which I love”. There are oversize white silk poplin blouses, skirts trimmed with ribbon detail, a shapely black coat and two navy jackets.
The shoot has been deliberately styled with flat shoes: "I think you can wear a posh dress with a pair of flats – I wanted it to be visually light, summery and easy. When everyone is matchy matchy and too outfitted, it means that you can end up looking like a member of the chorus in an amateur dramatic production of My Fair Lady."
His views on racing style are equally adamant. “If you are standing in a field at the races in six-inch heels – and in Ireland probably a damp field – and clutching your fascinator which is about to blow off like a wind turbine, would you not be better in a pair of nice sturdy flat shoes and a hat that you can sit on and bash back into shape? But that’s me – and I really loathe telling people what to wear or what not to wear,” he says, rolling his eyes.
Celebrated for costume design – he was an award winner again this year at the Irish Times Irish Theatre Awards for his Great Gatsby costumes at the Gate – he confides a well-known professional trick. "If there is a ball or a big party, you dress everyone in frills, jewels and sequins and you let your leading lady arrive a bit late in a simple plain frock and she will knock everyone out. And it's the same getting dressed up. Everyone wants to be noticed and if you like frills and sequins, what I say will sound dreary and like a spoil-sport, but I think that people always look good when they are comfortable".
His views on the red carpet are well known on social media. “It was infinitely more interesting when people bought their own clothes and made mistakes and looked like themselves – now everyone wants to be cloned in a slashed dress, fishtails and bare back, 21st-century sirens. When you know how it works and the bribery of the stylists who are not only paid by the couture houses as well as the stars they dress – then it becomes a ludicrous joke. I don’t object to the morality of it, it is the boredom of it. It also engenders something else: armies of women being cruel, body fascism about other women and how they dress. It has become like a blood sport and I cannot bear it. I am constantly asked to go on panels and comment on the red carpet and I just won’t do it.”
But he is passionate about fashion despite his dislike of the “normalisation” of highly sexualised power dressing at red-carpet events.
“The notion of wearing a dress with as little dress as possible – is being almost naked about empowerment? None of the male actors walk down the red carpet with their butts out. I have spent my whole life surrounded by women and working with women, so I like them a lot and would not design the clothes that I do if I didn’t like them, so I am on their side,” he says , going on to admit – with a disarming smile – that he “rants and raves” about seams.
- Peter O'Brien's summer collection is on sale in Dunnes Stores, Grafton St, Cornelscourt, St Stephen's Green and online. He will be making a personal appearance on April 14th in Dunnes Stores, Patrick St, Cork.
- Photographer: Sarah Doyle, model: Sara Semic @Milk Management UK; stylist Peter O'Brien assisted by Caoilfhionn Walsh; hair Michael Leong; make-up Zoe Clarke; shot on location in Appassionata Flowers, Dublin.
