From Fermanagh to Rihanna: the Irish designer blazing a trail

Enniskillen man Dean Quinn is a hot new name in fashion. His styles are worn by Rihanna and his debut show in New York is eagerly anticipated

A YOUNG designer from Fermanagh will tomorrow make a bold debut at New York Fashion Week, joining established names such as Calvin Klein and Donna Karan. Twenty-five-year-old Dean Quinn from Enniskillen will show a capsule collection of 12 looks at Milk Studios, the hip gallery space in the city’s Meatpacking District, establishing his own line for the first time. His family – all 15 of them – had to cancel their travel arrangements to attend the show after his father, a former athlete and weightlifter, had a heart attack, from which he is now recovering.

Dean is the second youngest in the family. His interest in fashion began as teenager. “Seeing Alexander McQueen’s work in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London when I was 16 changed my life,” he says, adding cheerfully that he had also “got sick of drawing squashed-up coke cans in art class”.

He started his career as an intern in London, working for the eccentric British designer Zandra Rhodes, who spotted his talent and encouraged him to study at Central Saint Martins college of art and design. “I didn’t even know what St Martins was,” Quinn has said. “I thought it was a religious school.”

He graduated in 2009, winning womenswear designer of the year for his collection based on the cult movie Blade Runner. The collection used glass beading like a motif on his detailed, structured pieces; he described it as “tailored, embellished and robotic”. He was listed in the Independent newspaper’s top 100 people in the creative industries in the UK, and became creative-in- residence at the Hospital Club in Covent Garden in London, taking the role of a fashion mentor. “When he walked into the room, he cast a spell,” said the fashion writer Camilla Morton at the time. “His ideas, his innovative use of textiles and his charm made him an exciting name to watch.”

He moved to Milan to work as a designer with Donatella Versace. “It was amazing to go to such a huge brand and work with such experienced professionals,” he told Sharon Irvine of the Fermanagh Herald. “Larger brands can do up to 10 collections a year, so you definitely become a more experienced and fast-acting designer in a small space of time. I am now in no rush to develop my own company into a monster brand any time soon. I really feel that long-term happiness and success will come from slow development and progression.”

His collection will, he says, have “a hyperminimal feeling” and will be wearable and simple rather than outre and audacious. “I want this to be commercial, so I have concentrated on dresses, though there are some trousers and shirts.”

A preview of the collection shows floor-length dresses with pleated skirts and bright orange and “sea-foam” green jumpsuits, as well as knee-length cocoon dresses in black and white. Already his work has caught the eyes of celebrities such as Rihanna, whom he has dressed for several performances, including an appearance on Good Morning America in a striking blazer.

His move to New York is an astute shift at a time when the city is trying to develop a reputation for promoting new designers,. “Fashion people in New York are different than anywhere else in the world,” he says. “There is a hunger for new talent here, and it goes all the way to the top of every magazine.”

Though it’s a long way from the Everglades estate in Enniskillen, where his family live, to the catwalks of New York, there’s a sense that Quinn has a grounded approach to fashion and his future in it. “I am 25 now, so I am hoping that by 30 I will be in a position to have full-time, happy staff working with me to achieve a common goal of a healthy and successful business as well as a life for each of us. That, I believe, is the measure of true success.”