Irish Design Week, Day Two: Sinéad O’Dwyer & Anastasiia Fedorova

Sinéad O’Dwyer and Anastasiia Fedorova

Design Diplomacy featuring Diane Pernet and Eibhlín Albert-Doran

Join us for an evening where fashion, craft, and radical collaboration come together to tell stories, challenge perceptions, and spark new conversations. As part of Irish Design Week, internationally acclaimed Irish designer Sinéad O’Dwyer joins London-based writer and cultural commentator Anastasiia Fedorova in a searching dialogue about body politics, inclusive design, and the role of fashion as social change. O’Dwyer’s work radically reshapes how bodies are seen and celebrated, questioning norms of fit and form, while Fedorova’s writing and curatorial practice opens new perspectives on identity, sexuality, and contemporary culture.

The evening also features Diane Pernet, a former designer, critic, and one of the earliest pioneers of digital fashion media, best known as the founder of the ground breaking fashion-film festival ASVOFF. Her work demonstrates how moving image can connect communities and translate craft into global narratives. Eibhlín Doran, who collaborates closely with photographers, directors, and artists — with current clients including Givenchy, Hermès, and Saint Laurent — brings a vital perspective on visual identity, exploring how design and storytelling can amplify heritage, shape memory, and create meaningful cultural impact.

Presented in collaboration with the National College of Art and Design and the Design & Crafts Council Ireland, this event underscores the importance of research, craft, and collaboration in shaping Ireland’s design future within a global context.

Sinéad O’Dwyer is a London-based womenswear brand, founded in 2021 by Irish designer Sinéad O’Dwyer. Sinéad O’Dwyer offers intentionally designed luxury garments for women and gender non-conforming femmes of all shapes and sizes. Diverse bodies are central to the design process, from research and development to the final product. Aesthetically characterised by a tension between a soft sensuality and an imposing toughness, the brand’s narratives are emotionally driven and personal.

These stories are given further depth through projects that communicate the relationship to their community and models, collaborating extensively with photographer Sharna Osborne, stylist Ai Kamoshita and casting director Emma Matell. Sinéad O’Dwyer has been showing at London Fashion Week as a recipient of the British Fashion Council’s Newgen since 2022 and was a 2023 British Fashion Council Foundation Award Nominee. The brand won the 2024 Zalando Visionary Award and last year was a 2025 LVMH Award Semi-Finalist. They have dressed models Alva Claire, Paloma Elsesser, Precious Lee, Lara Stone and Tess McMillan, musicians Kelsey-Lu, Arca, CMAT, Yseult, Cosha and Beth Ditto and most recently actress and comedian Meg Stalter. The brand has been widely featured across Vogue, British Vogue, Business of Fashion, i-D, Dazed, Another, Elle, Vogue Business, The Face and WWD.

Anastasiia Fedorova is a writer, curator and researcher based in London. Her work explores sexuality and identity through the prism of art, fashion, consumerism, technology, and contemporary visual culture. She has written for Dazed, i-D, Kaleidoscope Magazine, 032c, Foam Magazine, SHOWstudio, Frieze and Vogue amongst other publications. She has appeared as a speaker at ICA London, the Barbican, and the BFI and has been a guest lecturer at Chelsea College of Art, University of Arts London and New York University among others. She is the author of 'Second Skin: Inside the Worlds of Fetish, Kink and Deviant Desire' published by Granta in 2025.

Design Diplomacy. 6:15pm-7:15pm
Design Diplomacy is a concept developed by Helsinki Design Week, and produces unique, intimate conversations between two creative minds. During the event the international design professional meets an Irish designer over a card game of questions. Visitors will have an opportunity to experience carefully curated and unique conversations as in each situation the participants meet for the first time.

American Designer: Diane Pernet

Diane Pernet is a trailblazer uniting fashion, film, and digital culture. A former fashion designer, journalist, and critic, she founded A Shaded View on Fashion (ASVOF), one of the earliest fashion blogs, pioneering the dialogue between style, identity, and culture. In 2006, she created You Wear It Well, the world’s first international fashion film festival, which evolved in 2008 into A Shaded View on Fashion Film (ASVOFF). As the leading showcase for fashion film, ASVOFF has redefined how fashion engages with moving image. Pernet’s vision continues to nurture innovation and emerging creative voices worldwide.

Irish Designer: Eibhlín Albert-Doran

Eibhlín Albert-Doran is an art director and designer based in Paris. She studied Visual Communication at NCAD, Dublin, and holds a master’s degree in Design History. She bega her career at GTF, London, and later at M/M (Paris), working on projects for Alexander McQueen, Loewe, and Miu Miu. Since founding her own practice in 2023, she has taken a 360-degree approach to image strategy and visual identity, spanning art direction, moving image, identity, and publications. She collaborates closely with photographers, directors, and artists, with current clients including Givenchy, Hermès, and Saint Laurent.

Join us at the Royal Irish Academy of Music for an evening filled with inspiring discussions, innovative ideas, and creative collaborations.

Event Venue

Royal Irish Academy of Music, 36-38 Westland Row, Dublin 2, Ireland

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