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What makes a Sinéad O’Dwyer muse? The answer was woven through the Irish designer’s fall 2025 collection, aptly titled “Character Studies.” “Narrative is really important to build the collection,” O’Dwyer tells Vogue days before the London show. “I was thinking a lot about how someone embodies a character when they take on a certain role in their life or work. I thought of this more like a film with a cast. But not so literal.” In previous seasons, the designer has imagined angsty teenage orchestra members, doms and subs, and nannies after the kids have been tucked up in bed; and dressed them up in her now-signature shibari leggings and dresses.
Helping her bring her vision to reality is the casting director Emma Matell. The two first worked together on a short film, DOMICILIARY, directed by Sharna Osborne which showed O’Dwyer’s spring 2022 collection. “I feel like [that was] the real beginning of the brand,” says the designer. “For me, meeting Sinéad let me see why I actually cared about casting in the first place,” says Matell. Back then she was still working as an assistant at IMG Models and “casting under the table.” Now she counts Vivienne Westwood, Diesel, Cecilie Bahnsen, and Paulina Russo, as well as burgeoning brands like LUEDER and George Keburia in London and Nicklas Skovgaard in Copenhagen among her clients.
“It’s important for the both of us to avoid the jaded energy,” O’Dwyer says. “When Emma was starting out, she would say: ‘Of course we can cast anyone! We can make it work!’ I find that passion and care hard to find in this industry. It is really difficult to cast inclusively, and to make clothes for everyone in the luxury sector. The system doesn’t exist to support what we’re trying to do.” For O’Dwyer’s first runway show as part of New Gen, they cast an ambitious 20 models—20 different shapes, sizes, proportions.
Now they have a community of models they work with often, which allows O’Dwyer to design intentionally with their shapes and body needs in mind—like O’Dwyer’s fit model and muse from university, Jade O’Belle. For the shows, Matell and O’Dwyer pre-cast according to four sample sizes (fitting a UK size 4 up to a 32), and the rest is made-to-measure. It’s an ever-evolving process.
“I needed time—and money—to build my library of shapes and sizes for the range of sample sizes I wanted,” she explains. “Using regular core models helps me develop a product consistently. But it means I feel confident when new models come in too, because I have so much more knowledge of proportions.”
It is also a holistic journey for Matell, O’Dwyer, and their models in an industry that can feel relentless and beholden to breakneck speeds. They intentionally kept the number of models they invite for casting small—around 30 women. “We’ve been thinking about disposability in fashion,” says Matell. “It’s too normalized to have people for one season, and then move on to the next. We want to always work with our muses.”
Although there has been a marked decline in opportunities for curve models, Vogue Business recently reported that London is the most size-inclusive fashion week, in part due to its glut of progressive talent, which along with O’Dwyer also includes Chopova Lowena and Karoline Vitto. “We’ve had to do a lot of street casting to fill the gaps in modelling agencies,” Matell adds.
Previous seasons saw friends and family take to the runway, but this time, they wanted to focus on professional models “to really champion them,” Matell says, “and make clear they deserve jobs and bookings. They’re as ‘luxury’ as everyone else.”
While showing for six seasons has been a mammoth task, it has pushed O’Dwyer’s craft and vision. She’s more interested now in showing once a year, and exploring other creative projects that bring her closer to her customer. This year she was also announced as a semi-finalist for the 2025 LVMH prize, which will bring her work into the exhibition space.
“There’s no way I could do this without Emma,” says O’Dwyer. “She lifts me with her enthusiasm. That’s important when I’m up sewing all night. I could just say, ‘we’ll cast a person we know!’ But she sees people so clearly in new, creative ways. Seeing someone go from the street to the runway is so special.”
