A spectacular campaign shot in Roundstone, Connemara, features Jamie-Lee O’Donnell, Celia Holman Lee, Max Hart, Travy, KhakiKid, Lauren Whelan, Marwa Noelle Ali and Ivana Miličević.
Ireland Fashion Week powered by Visa has unveiled its striking 2026 campaign, Coming Home: An Island in Motion, which gathers eight prominent names drawn from Irish film and music, fashion, sport and culture against the vast Atlantic backdrop of Roundstone, Connemara.
The campaign went live on 18 September, the Ireland Fashion Week 2026 hero image projected at vast scale onto the Convention Centre, before a city-wide OOH rollout across 85 Dublin locations.
Shot by Damian Foxe, the globally celebrated Irish photographer, the creative venture sets Ireland Fashion Week in motion before its return next week, from 7 to 12 October 2026, with eight shows, more than 90 designers and a roster taking in familiar names, rising talent, graduates and the broader creative community of Ireland.
The launch features actor Jamie-Lee O’Donnell; racing driver Max Hart; Irish fashion icon Celia Holman Lee; Ireland Fashion Week Model of the Year Marwa Noelle Ali; musicians Travy and Abdu Huss, known as KhakiKid; digital creator Lauren Whelan; and actor and model Ivana Miličević.
Collectively, those cast mirror the myriad ways in which Ireland is lived today. Their backstories reach across eras, countries and cultures, yet each holds a sense of belonging and helps shape Irish living as it stands now.
Ashley McDonnell, Founder of Ireland Fashion Week, who led both the casting and the production of the campaign, said: “Coming Home: An Island in Motion is a celebration of Irish creativity in all its forms. We have brought together an extraordinary cast spanning fashion, film, music, sport and culture, dressed in Irish design and photographed against the breathtaking landscape of Roundstone.”
“We wanted this to feel both familiar and unexpected. To capture the Ireland we know and love while showing the confidence, diversity and creative energy shaping the country today. Each person involved brings their own story and interpretation of home, but together they represent an Ireland that is proud of its roots and excited about its future.
She continued: “Ireland Fashion Week is ultimately about celebrating the remarkable talent we have here and giving people across the country the opportunity to discover, support and take pride in Irish fashion.”
The shoot reimagined the streets, shoreline and working harbour of Roundstone as a striking fashion backdrop. Set against weather-beaten buildings, veteran boat workshops and the dramatic Connemara coastline, the pictures feel simultaneously familiar and surprising, pairing the rugged character of the west of Ireland with the gloss and ambition of an international fashion editorial.
Speaking about joining the campaign and Ireland Fashion Week 2026, actor Jamie-Lee O’Donnell said: “Fashion has always been a brilliant form of self-expression for me. It can say so much about who you are, where you come from and how you want to present yourself to the world. Ireland is full of fearless, imaginative creatives who deserve to be seen on an international stage.
She went on: “Being part of this campaign feels incredibly special. The landscape in Connemara is unmistakably Irish, but the fashion and creative direction show a country that is constantly evolving and redefining itself. I’m genuinely proud to help launch it.”
This year, the Ireland Fashion Week City Hall show hands the spotlight to Sinéad O’Dwyer, the internationally admired Irish designer whose radical take on inclusivity, representation and brilliantly clever pattern-cutting is rewriting luxury now. She has won the Zalando Visionary Award, secured British Fashion Council NEWGEN backing and made the semi-finals of the 2025 LVMH Prize. Two of her pieces sit in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute. O’Dwyer, acclaimed for her progressive stance on inclusivity and representation, is recasting contemporary luxury through resourceful cutting and a far broader conversation between garment and body.
The six-day schedule further includes Brother Wolf by Pádraig Whelehn, Mná by Sarah Plunkett Chadwick, Aoife McNamara, Sasha Donnellan, Bold Golf and RASHHIIID. The opening Irish Roots show at St Helen’s brings together established and up-and-coming Irish labels, while Damhsa, the graduate show, carries more than 40 designers to the RDS. A further 30 designers will be presented in The Irish Edit showroom at 1 Windmill Quarter.
This year will attract more than 20 international publications, along with leading creatives, journalists and models, plus international model Coco Rocha. Discovered at 14 while competing at an Irish dance feis, Rocha has since walked for the likes of Dior, Chanel and Jean Paul Gaultier.
Conceived by Artistic Director David Allen, the IFW 2026 campaign Coming Home rests on three ideas: community, contrast and celebration. Roundstone’s residents and their daily labour run right through the narrative, while the cast personifies an Ireland proud of its history yet forever in motion.
Foxe, the campaign’s photographer, is a Dubliner based in London whose work has appeared in the international editions of Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar and Vanity Fair, and who previously served as Fashion Director at the Financial Times’ HTSI. Back on Irish soil for the shoot, he unites a world-class fashion sensibility with an intimate knowledge of the nation’s visual vocabulary.
Looks were chosen by stylist Brian Conway from designers participating in Ireland Fashion Week 2026, among them Paul Costelloe, Sasha Donnellan, Triona, Magee 1866, Louis Copeland, Jack Murphy and Alacoque Daly. Hair came from the Dylan Bradshaw team using L’Oréal Professionnel, while makeup was led by Lan Nguyen-Grealis using SOSU Cosmetics.
Back as title sponsor in 2026, Visa backs designers and creative entrepreneurs across Ireland as they grow their businesses, adopt digital commerce and win new audiences. Tourism Ireland and Dublin City Council also lend their support to Ireland Fashion Week, and that support will be essential to the 2026 programme.
Beyond paying tribute to the Irish landscape, Coming Home states an ambition for Ireland Fashion Week: Irish creativity merits the same scale, confidence and production values as any major fashion capital overseas.
The Ireland Fashion Week programme for 7 to 12 October 2026 is revealed
Wednesday, 7 October: Slane Castle hosts the Opening Ceremony
An evening ceremony and dinner at Slane Castle in Co. Meath launches Ireland Fashion Week, which returns for a second year with Marks & Spencers to celebrate the designers and makers driving Ireland’s fashion industry and to get the six-day schedule under way.
Under the theme Coming Home: An Island in Motion, M&S and Ireland Fashion Week are connecting Ireland’s creative influence abroad with a world-leading fashion ecosystem on home ground. Working alongside strategic partners, they are empowering Ireland’s creatives to set the industry’s course from here.
As M&S marks 100 years in fashion, the night will acknowledge the mark the brand has made on Ireland’s market and the part it played in nurturing a number of Ireland’s most recognisable fashion figures, from here to London and well beyond.
A shared devotion to creativity and craftsmanship runs through the opening ceremony, with Irish chef Mark Moriarty heading up the food and Corina Gaffey overseeing creative styling.
Thursday, 8 October: From Irish Roots to sportswear
The Irish Roots Show at St Helens Hotel in Booterstown, Dublin, opens Thursday’s schedule. Later that evening, The Exo Building in Dublin’s Docklands hosts the Bold Golf Sportswear Show.
Friday, 9 October: Sinéad O’Dwyer plus The Irish Edit
The Irish Edit Showroom takes up residence at 1WML on Windmill Lane, Dublin 2. Sinéad O’Dwyer then stages her show at Dublin City Hall that evening.
Saturday, 10 October: Streetwear, showcases and new graduates
The Damhsa Graduate Show at the RDS Concert Hall opens Saturday, putting fresh talent right at the centre of proceedings.
Next comes the Rashhiiid Showcase at the Gerard Byrne Gallery on Trinity Street, with the Brother Wolf Streetwear Show held that evening at The Douglas Hyde Gallery in Trinity College Dublin.
Sunday, 11 October: MNÁ, talks and contemporary design
The Sasha Donnellan Contemporary Show at Dion Rooftop Restaurant, One Central Plaza, on Dame Street gets Sunday started.
Across the day, panel conversations take place at Medley, inside the Old Irish Times Building in the centre of Dublin, billed as Visa Presents: Ireland Fashion Week Talks.
The day closes with the MNÁ Fashion Show at The Stapleton in Powerscourt Townhouse Centre.
Monday, 12 October: Mount Juliet and modern heritage
Co. Kilkenny brings the week to its finale, hosting the Aoife McNamara Modern Heritage Show at Mount Juliet Estate, Thomastown.
Spanning graduate collections through to showings from established names, the 2026 Ireland Fashion Week programme invites audiences to take in the full breadth of Irish fashion and to meet the designers and creatives defining its next chapter.
For more detail on Ireland Fashion Week 2026, visit https://irelandfashionweek.substack.com/
