Sinead Gorey brings Irish pub culture to London Fashion Week
An Irish pub – complete with pool tables, low lighting and bottles raised mid-walk – was not the most obvious setting for a London Fashion Week runway. But for autumn/winter 2026, Sinead Gorey made it the centrepiece.
Staged in The Crypt at St James’s Church in Clerkenwell, the underground venue was bathed in a dim red light, evoking the atmosphere of a Nineties Irish local.
For Gorey, whose work often draws on London nightlife subcultures, the pub represented both the beginning and end of a night out: “The pub,” she says, “honestly, nothing beats being wedged round a sticky table with your girls on a Friday, pint in hand, pretending you’re good at pool. Maybe it’s the half Irish thing, maybe it’s just in my DNA […] some people meditate, I go to the boozer.”
Military jackets, braiding and structured tailoring reinforced the power-dressing.
Corsetry and bustled silhouettes were reworked in bonded Lycra, technical jersey and metallic finishes, fusing heritage femininity with contemporary fabrication.
The palette echoed the setting: stout blacks, bitter browns and oxblood reds were punctuated by pool-table greens and flashes of chrome. Glossy finishes suggested lacquered tabletops; heavy shearling and structured outerwear nodded to the reality of cold pavements outside the pub doors.
Footwear tapped into shared British and Irish nostalgia, with the classic Kickers Kick-Hi boots grounding many of the looks.
The sex appeal remained but the tailoring carried more authority. The exaggerated silhouettes suggested confidence rather than chaos, hinting at a maturing vision.
By reframing the Irish pub as a space of mythology rather than cliché, Gorey delivered a show that felt culturally specific yet broadly relatable.
Beneath the theatrics of pool cues and pints was a considered exploration of where tradition, rebellion and femininity meet.
If previous collections captured the chaos of the after-party, autumn/winter 2026 suggested Gorey understands that the stories shaping a night out often begin around a sticky table, under low lights, long before the club doors open.