Róisín Pierce is the latest designer to join the brand development division of Dover Street Market Paris.
“This is going to allow pathways and open up opportunities to have more visibility on the brand in terms of stores,” the Dublin-based designer told WWD on Thursday. “More growth while keeping to our foundational values of craft and contemporary constructions is what’s really exciting for us right now.”
Adrian Joffe, chief executive officer of Dover Street Market and president of Comme des Garçons International, said Pierce brought “a delightful twist to tradition and craftsmanship, infusing her designs with poetic charm.”
Pierce’s four-year-old label, which eschews the traditional seasonal fashion calendar in favor of a single annual offering, is stocked exclusively at Dover Street Market in New York and Los Angeles for fall 2023.
The partnership with DSMP starts with the upcoming fall 2024 market for sales, with production support kicking in from the 2025 collection.
Going forward, Pierce is keen to leverage DSMP’s distribution, production and communication expertise to make her handcraft-intensive vernacular more readily known and available. To her the moment is “just really exciting because on our own, it might not have been possible to have such a wide reach,” she said, confessing her team of two was currently working on all fronts.
That’s not to say Pierce will throw the brand’s craft focus to the wayside. “The brand and each collection [are] a continuing, enduring universe of intricate textiles and textile innovations, so it’s about developing our language and these techniques further,” she said.
One design challenge she will embrace is refining the production process of her more artisanal pieces. In fact, showing a single collection a year was led by her desire to “respect the craft as well as design, and give focus to new thoughts and designs,” she said.
Pierce is set to unveil her fifth collection, billed as fall 2024, at the Embassy of Ireland in Paris on March 1. The range will then be on show from March 3 to 6 at the DSMP showrooms at 35-37 Rue des Francs-Bourgeois.
In keeping with her pursuit of “intricate textiles and textile innovation” through the use of traditional Irish techniques, expect “more lively floral structures, more intricate Irish crochet mixed in new ways [and] very frothy, icing-like textiles that float,” Pierce hinted. There will also be bags and headpieces paired with her designs.
A graduate of Dublin’s National College of Art and Design textile design program, the Irish designer won the 2019 Hyères International Festival of Fashion, Photography and Fashion Accessories and was a finalist for the 2022 LVMH Prize.
Pierce previously described her namesake brand as telling a feminist backstory to craft, particularly those of her native country. She said she staunchly believes such political topics that are deeply important to her have increased staying power and can travel further when brought to life through beautiful designs.
Her label joins DSMP’s stable of 15 brands, all operating under different business arrangements with the Comme des Garçons-owned organization.
Other brands include Random Identities, Rassvet, Olly Shinder, Valériane Venance’s Indépendantes de Coeur, footwear label Phileo, and Zomer, which makes its debut on the official Paris calendar this season with its March 5 show.