Irish designer Emily O’Shea on finding inspiration in the joyful and the ordinary

When designer Emily O’Shea announced that she wasn’t “nostalgic”, her friend was quick to disagree. “‘But your work is based on things you see, memories, things that make you think. How is that not nostalgic?’”

There are certainly moments of reflection that run through the Cork woman’s designs. Emily’s NCAD graduate collection was inspired by photos she took on her walk home, after an accident left her dreading the commute. “I distracted myself by snapping pictures of the funny little things I saw as I walked, like a seagull eating salsa, or a bit of graffiti, or a shopping list someone dropped.” Printing the photos onto fabric and cutting t-shirts out by hand, she sold her entire graduate collection and has been making her irreverent ready-to- wear t-shirts the same way ever since.

Emily interned with Irish designer Ríon Hannora, who inspired her to start a high-fashion line alongside her t-shirts. “She has a great balance of things,” says Emily. Her current collection – which is available in Om Diva, Dublin 2 – is a continuation of Emily’s image-based meditation, but in a different form. “It’s more delicate,” combining layers of tulle with free-hand embroidery. “I use a darning stitch on my granny’s old sewing machine,” she explains, although admits it’s a difficult skill to master. “My auntie, Anne Kiely, is a print and textile designer and she taught me from a young age how to do all this really fun stuff with textiles.”

The jumper, above, has four layers of tulle in each panel, 16 in total, and each layer has four to eight pieces of embroidery on them. “I love the looseness and the craziness of it, the haziness of the embroidery reflecting a sense of memory.” Each piece of embroidery is based on a series of family photographs of Emily, her brother and parents. “I come from a family of bikers, my dad is really into bikes,” she explains. “Some people went to the beach or the park, we grew up going to rallies and bike shows. The idea behind the collection is to show bikes and bike culture through a child’s eye, as this wonderful community of passionate friends… Maybe I am a bit nostalgic,” grins Emily.

@emilyy.oshea

Photography by Emily O’Shea. This article originally appeared in the Spring 2026 issue of IMAGE. Have you thought about becoming an IMAGE subscriber? Our Print & Digital Magazine subscribers receive all four issues of IMAGE Magazine and two issues of IMAGE Interiors directly to their door along with digital access to all digital magazines and our full digital archive plus a luxury gift from La Bougie worth €75. Visit here to find out more about our IMAGE subscription packages.