Bossing it: Deirdre McQuillan charts the career of Irish fashion designer Louise Kennedy…
“The most elegant … one talented grand dame,” is how Dame Glenda Bailey, former editor in chief of Harper’s Bazaar recently described Irish fashion designer Louise Kennedy who this month marks her 40th year in business. Having made her debut at the age of 23 with her first collection (and a bank loan of €10,000) shortly after leaving the Grafton Academy in 1983, the hurler’s daughter from Thurles began her steady ascent in the world of fashion, known for a perfectionism and sharp eye for detail, fabric and finish that has remained her signature ever since.
Winner of several awards and a brand ambassador for Mercedes, Kennedy’s clothes have dressed heads of state, high-profile businesswomen, movie stars and members of the British, European and Middle Eastern royal families. She has designed judicial robes and Aer Lingus uniforms, crystal, handbags, scarves and jewellery, and her flagship in London’s Belgravia, now in its 23rd year, is steadily increasing its turnover. Her reputation has always been for timeless classics in quality fabrics and exquisite craftsmanship. Last year, Kennedy’s company recorded an exceptional increase in profits, the pent-up post-pandemic demand for special occasion pieces a key driver for increased sales. Business is back on a pre-Covid growth footing.
The Dublin store at 56 Merrion Square.
We meet in the Georgian grandeur of her Merrion Square headquarters in her luxurious upstairs apartment. Slim and slender – she is a size 8 – elegant as always, she is dressed simply in black from head to toe, in a roll-neck cashmere sweater and trousers, the perfect foil for those ice-blue eyes and blonde hair in a shoulder length style she has never abandoned. I notice the jewellery – a wide multicoloured Indian cuff “from the Gem Palace in Jaipur” and a spectacular Italian starburst diamond ring bought over 20 years ago from Paul Sheeran jewellers decorating one of her long tapering fingers. “Starbursts are my lucky omens and there is always a little starburst element in my collections,” she says with a smile, gesticulating elaborately as she is wont to do in conversation. Her devoted miniature Schnauzer, Paddy Paws, has been relocated elsewhere for the duration of the interview.
AW17: Paddy coat, with Louise’s muse, Paddy Paws. Photographer: Sarah Doyle.
We are in a beautiful, light-filled rooftop room with white walls and an east/west orientation overlooking the Square, full of interesting pieces of furniture, art, sculpture, books, flowers, vases and objets d’art, all of which have been carefully chosen and positioned and testify to a practised eye. Such are the spoils of success. “These are things for which you will always find a home. A lot of the pieces have moved with me over the years and I love mixing styles. Great design has always been about proportion and scale and that has remained the same down through the centuries,” she says. The furniture includes a pair of gilt candelabras that belonged to her father, Jimmy Kennedy, the famous Tipperary hurler, two tables by David Linley whose furniture she once sold in her shop, a Plycraft chair acquired from Michael Mortell in Francis Street, another art deco table from Killian McNulty’s Mid-Century Online. “I love mid-century and Italian 1970s furniture and we use some of these pieces in the store – these styles represent everything that I love in furniture.” Kennedy is the only resident of this side of the Square.
The London store on West Halkin Street, Belgravia opened in 2010.
So much for her taste in interiors and architecture which so easily could have created another career entirely. But fashion was always in her blood “and fashion and art blend so seamlessly,” she argues. One of five children of Rita and Jimmy Kennedy, she grew up near Midleton in Co Cork where her father managed a malting plant; the family later moved to Thurles where her mother’s family owned a drapery called JK Moloney, then the largest in the town. Her mother, though bedridden with rheumatoid arthritis, had a great sense of colour and style which Louise inherited, along with a strong business head and a fundamentally private but warm disposition from her father. Her mother died in 1983 aged 55, just as Louise was beginning her career. She remained very close to her father until his death in 2007.
Louise Kennedy and sister Caroline in Paris.
The second eldest of the five, Louise was always drawing as a child and very particular about mixing colours, so it was no surprise that at school with the Brigidine nuns in Abbeyleix, art was one of her strongest subjects. After graduation and a short period at the College of Marketing, she decided to pursue a fashion course at the Grafton Academy. “I was fortunate in my family background,” she recalls. “My mother had grown up in fashion and I knew that the best way to learn was on the cutting floor. I wanted to work with fabrics and I knew that at the time, there was room to set the bar higher. I have to thank my parents for that encouragement. My mum died just as I finished college but she had given me design contacts. My father’s work ethic was amazing. He was a phenomenal role model – I understood the business of fashion.” She also credits Eddie Shanahan for his encouragement of young fashion students at the time.
AW16: Riko jacket, Inez skirt and Yvette silk wrap. Photographer: Barry McCall.
Her first collection, made in workshops in Clanbrassil and Gardiner Streets, was taken up by Brown Thomas where buyer Marie McCarthy recognised her talent and where a certain John Redmond had just started his own career designing the windows of the store, under the tutelage of legendary buyer Cecily McMenamin. Redmond later became Creative Director for over a decade and remains a friend. “He gave me three windows in Grafton Street and I can still see the cropped jackets and wide culottes,” she recalls. Forty years later, hers is still the only Irish brand that has pride of place among international players like Prada, Dior, Dolce & Gabbana and others in the store. “Business is ultimately about relationships – honesty and integrity is everything. The product is number one and we are still tiny but we have strong brand that we have created as a team with loyalty and passion. We have a lot of competition and are up against phenomenal international businesses.” Stylist Catherine Condell and photographer Barry McCall are longtime collaborateurs.
AW20: Sadie knit and red Kennedy 26 tote. Photographer: Barry McCall.
So much for the business side about which she is eloquent and passionate, questions answered exhaustively. When it comes to the more personal side of the designer, she is more guarded and reticent. She confirms that she and her younger sister, PR Caroline Kennedy, “are joined at the hip. She is my best friend, my mentor and so much fun. I admire her acumen.” Of the other members of her family, her brother Chris looks after warehousing at Louise Kennedy, sister Rosemary lives in the US, while another sister Susan runs The Kilkenny College of Beauty Therapy. Close friends include food writer Katy McGuinness and Catherine Burke-Kennedy. The Canadian TV trailblazer Jeanne Beker, “like a sister to me” is another confidante and has spoken of Louise’s “warmth and profound elegance”.
Louise Kennedy, en route to South Carolina, US.
Travel is a huge part of her life. This May alone, she spent almost three weeks in New Delhi in India where she worked with craftsmen on intricate beading and embroideries for her collections; from there she travelled to the Maldives and later to Paris for the Premiere Vision fabric fair. “I have already selected fabrics for autumn/winter 24. I love travelling – it is where my inspiration comes from. Images from a recent visit to Kerry are already up on moodboards in the office. Travel is vital for me for the stimulation it gives – is there anything better than people-watching in great cities?”
AW84: Silk shirt and palazzo trousers.
Off duty, she likes having dinner with friends, walks a lot, dislikes going to the gym but sometimes does Pilates. “I am very strict about diet and am practically vegetarian, eat oily fish occasionally and a lot of cheese and avocado. I love Indian food. Caroline is a wonderful cook,” she adds. Her favourite reading is autobiography and biography; Vogue Editor-in- Chief Edward Enninful’s A Visible Man rests on a table nearby. For a mental and physical detox, she spends two weeks in Marbella every year conservative fasting at the Buchinger Clinic. “It’s not about losing weight but establishing mental clarity, and rest. It keeps stress at bay.”
Louise Kennedy is starting to attract many new “stealth wealth” US clients who love discovering a “best-kept secret” designer name. “We have understated clients who are happy to invest, who can tell quality fabric from afar, perceive how a shoulder is cut, notice AMF stitching.” (AMF stitching is a sign of a quality made-to-measure tailored suit). “They are not driven by logos. In London, Saudi women, for instance, don’t try on clothes, they just select but they appreciate craftsmanship and beading and understand quality and subtlety.” She also explains that after the pandemic, she was advised to treat her website like another store and invested in an e-commerce platform which enables her to sell in every currency. Zoom styling with international clients, begun during the pandemic, continues.
AW20: Model Thalia Heffernan wears the Remi dress. Photographed by Barry McCall and styled by Catherine Condell at 56 Merrion Square.
This month, the anniversary will be marked with a major fashion show at the Mercedes-Benz dealership on Shelbourne Road in Ballsbridge, where some of her best-loved fabrics will be reworked along with updated Como jacquards and Linton tweeds and introducing new embroidery techniques to celebrate craftsmanship in evening to daywear and vice versa. It will be a strong black and white collection with shots of pink, dark navy and forest green, along with gold-highlighted orange and purples. A book to mark her career will be published later in the year. She will also be launching ten pieces of fine jewellery, and new crossbody and tote bags to add to the collection which is made in Venice – “our own Kellys and Birkins”.
A recent visit – and advice – from entrepreneurs, the Venezuelan Carmen Busquets (co-founder of Netaporter) and Princess Marie- Astrid of Liechtenstein, made her consider the craftsmanship of her clothes in a new light. “We have formed a small permanent collection, 100 per cent handcrafted, that will never go into sale and from which clients can order or have remade. I don’t like to only think of seasonal collections any more. I always wanted to make clothes that would be in your forever wardrobe, so we now have this permanent collection.”
Life may be a frenetic cycle of travel, creativity on demand and constant decision-making, but Kennedy has no plans to slow down or retire. “Fashion is an unrelenting business because you have to reinvent everything every couple of months while carefully preserving the DNA of the brand. I know I would not have grown and developed Louise Kennedy internationally were it not for the team who works with me. We can continue to grow organically, or we could accelerate that growth with the right partner. But, as for the future, I still think it is all ahead of me. I am looking forward to seeing what the next decade will bring.”
