‘Irish people love colour’: The Clare designer admired by Beyoncé, Tilda Swinton and Florence Pugh
“It’s an army at this point,” Irish designer Michael Stewart says cheerfully, talking of the hubbub of activity in his atelier in London. “We are now working at weekends and have some lace-makers working offside. Cut, fit and finish have to go hand in hand and especially in London where some of the great ateliers are diminishing. It is important that the line is held.”
Stewart is speaking to The Irish Times just ahead of his highly anticipated haute couture debut in Paris on Monday. Working from his atelier in 180 The Strand, there are as many as 15 people helping to complete the collection, with some elaborate pieces having soaked up hundreds of hours of handwork and stitching. “I am asking for excellence in making, finish and craft,” he says.
Stewart, who is from Kilkishen in east Clare and is a graduate of LSAD and the RCA, established his label Standing Ground in 2022. Dedicated to evening wear, the name is a reference to the standing stones of his native Burren landscape “like figures stepping from one time into another”.
Among the many standout pieces this collection promises, one is a full-length dress in Carrickmacross lace that took more than 20 lacemakers to complete from his hand-drawn motifs. It’s “as close as I will go into print”, he says. “I am all analogue. We don’t have a computer, there is nothing digital as I am completely against this – I don’t need it. It’s about the hand of the maker, things moulded over the body.”
Stewart won the LVMH Savoir Faire prize in 2024 and is often touted as a successor to Alaia. His celebrity fans include Beyoncé, Florence Pugh, Naomi Campbell and Tilda Swinton, who appreciate the structural drama of his fluid columnar creations, often with corseted and beaded structures.
“It’s about the sensitivity of the touch and how things are put together and nothing is too tight,” he says. “There is a huge amount of construction in the pieces as well as balance and tension.”
Swinton has been regularly seen in the most breathtaking creations such as the one in a dramatic blue at an event in Seoul, another in red at the Cannes Festival and one in corseted black leather and velvet from his last collection in September. “The great thing is working with clients and knowing what you need to do with them. If someone wears something of mine, they are my greatest advertisements. I like talented people,” Stewart says.
Tilda Swinton in Seoul, South Korea, 2025. Photograph: Han Myung-Gu/WireImage
The strong underpinning of craft and the sculpting of fabric is central to his aesthetic; this collection has been supported by the Design & Crafts Council of Ireland and the Heritage Council.
He loves colour – “Irish people love colour and I love putting together colours not traditionally put together.” In the collection there are a lot of grey, black and earth tones as well as scarlet, pale primrose yellow and what he calls a 1950s couture green – “the right shade is important – as well as acid green and pale goosebump green which looks really modern”.
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A courtesan ball gown comes in peach double satin with black suede corsetry and black velvet. “My corsetry is really special, extremely restricted but also relieved.” He talks about “the gesture of the seam, almost animated on axis points on the body – something is animated by placement. The process is totally organic and this is a highly technical studio”.
Fabrics – stock fabrics collected over the years – justify his use of describing Standing Ground as sustainable. They include his signature jerseys, silks, silk crepe marocain, silk georgette, double satin, silk organza, silk faille and silk velvet, the latter a speciality. Even listing them sounds like an incantation. The jersey he uses features his beading, hand sewn one by one, down to even tiny micro beads, so what was initially decorative has developed into a structural component of the garment and gives form to the seaming.
Does he align himself with designers such as Madame Gres, Vionnet or Charles James? He replies that he considers Rick Owens a great designer. And what does he think of being an Irish designer? “There are many ways to be an Irish designer, so many ways to reinterpret our culture and so many ways to define what our culture is. We are a nation of storytellers and there are different stories to be told.”
With all this intensely fastidious attention to detail, how does he relax? “I have a dog, an Affenpinscher called Igor, and I groom him. I don’t chill out to relax as I have to be active because I do everything to the nth degree – if I had a garden, I think I would grow speciality roses.” It’s no surprise that when he was asked as a child what he wanted to be, he replied “a sculptor”.
The haute couture collection will be supported by stylist Tallulah Harlech, daughter of Amanda Harlech, famed muse to both John Galliano and Karl Lagerfeld who oversaw his most recent photoshoot. “Tallulah saw what I was doing and stood by me – you need a champion. This collection is my own and I will be all over every aspect of it – you can’t do your whole vision otherwise. You are just showing the potential of what you can do.”
