London Fashion Week AW24 Highlights: Robyn Lynch channels Irish dance for upcycled menswear collection
Family is the greatest source of inspiration for Robyn Lynch. Whether it’s digging into her father’s wardrobe or rifling through home video footage, the designer takes each collection as an opportunity to explore personal nostalgia. This season the spotlight turns to her younger sister Adrianna, a professional Irish dancer.
"I vividly remember all these weekends spent in sports halls at competitions, seeing the glitz and the drama that happened on and off stage," Lynch said, whilst reminiscing on her colourful snapshots of Fèis, the Gaelic dance championships.
High kicks, spangled costumes and passionate spectators – it’s the culture and rituals which surround Fèis that became the Irish designer's core point of exploration for AW24.
Irish dancing merges elements of high camp and endurance, which initially came through in Lynch's latest choice of textiles. "I loved the contrasting feeling of a rich, abstract devoré against our recycled nylons. So this tension of pragmatic versus decorative became a through line in the process," she added.
In a playful nod to her sister’s stage wardrobe, celtic knots and monogram embroidery appear layered over classic outdoors trousers in the form of dancing skirts crafted with John Carey Design, a heritage artisan known for their Irish dance costumes.
Meanwhile, the collection's colours take inspiration from a custom map print of Éire imagined by art director and Lynch's regular collaborator Shauna Buckley. Shades include hickory brown, loading screen blue and matte black, with accents of oat milk white.
This season, Lynch also celebrates a special collaboration with C.P. Company, which reimagines and upcycles outerwear pieces from the Italian sportswear brand’s past collections.
Known for infusing her own perspective into storied labels, Lynch focused on embellishing functionality without losing the performance aspect of the clothes. "It was really fascinating to take apart the garments and learn about their construction, the detailing, the finishings – all of these elements definitely influenced the way I design myself. I considered the purpose of each item of clothing and its various parts," she said.
For her final show as part of the NEWGEN programme, Lynch also wanted to use the opportunity to revisit and perfect some of the cuts of seasons past. The Irish island embroidery from AW22 has been transformed into diamanté-encrusted dark denim jorts, while the SS23 bodycon technical knit has been made into a longline hoodie with an elastic toggle belt.
Newness in the form of laser-etched jeans, Aran knit zip-up cardigans and slinky rugby tops complete the line-up.
In what marks the Irish designer’s first official foray into footwear, all of the looks were also completed with trainers created in partnership with Italian shoemaker GEOX.
"I knew I wanted to reference my dad’s all-time favourite shoe, the perennial GEOX Uomo Snake," Lynch added.
"After going through all the variations of the model, I decided on revisiting a style from 2005. We created three variations, each in a different combination of browns and blues."
