Liberty Names Sinead O’Brien Head of Design, Bolsters In-House Fashion, Accessories Offer
O'Brien, who has worked for brands including Vivienne Westwood, Roksanda and Erdem, will show her first collection for spring 2028.
LONDON — Liberty has named Sinead O’Brien head of design as part of a wider strategy to build the in-house fashion and accessories collection and leverage the store’s fabrics and interiors expertise.
O’Brien, who spent the early part of her career working under Vivienne Westwood, and later took on senior consultancy roles at Roksanda and Erdem, joined Liberty last month, and will deliver her first collection for spring 2028.
She’ll be moving with the fashion cycle, releasing two main collections and two pre-collections each year. The plan, she said, is to build a wardrobe and add to the current dress offer with more layering pieces, outerwear, knitwear and separates. Liberty is also planning to enlarge the womenswear space on the second floor to showcase its “fashion world,” which also includes accessories.
During a walk-through of the current collection, O’Brien said she wants Liberty’s fashion to have a “romantic” feel.
Liberty’s fall 2026 collection, “Modern Reverie,” uses patterns drawn from the clothing and interiors archive that have been reinterpreted for dresses, coats, blouses and handbags. Prices range from 495 pounds for the printed Gala maxidress in velvet or silk to 625 pounds for the leather Burlington top-handle bag.
Liberty’s renewed focus on its own women’s rtw and accessories follows the retailer’s launch of Liberty-branded fragrances in 2023. There are eight fragrances in the collection, each of which is inspired by a different archival print. Names include Ianthe Oud, Liberty Maze and Zephirine. They sell at Liberty, and at stores including Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus, Bluemercury and C.O. Bigelow.
O’Brien, who was dressed in a Liberty black silk jacquard Gala dress with a lace detail around the neck and double ruffles on the sleeves, said her new collections “will all be rooted in the archive, which is an infinite pool of inspiration. We’re just putting a new lens on it.”
She said the aim was to look beyond the familiar floral and garden prints, and also borrow patterns and colors from interiors and menswear fabrics.
In the current collection there’s a silk shirt and matching trousers with a multicolored geometric print and a 1970s feel and a black topcoat with velvet lapels and a rose-printed silk lining. An oversize V-neck cardigan and a silk twill caftan are both adorned with magnified placement prints — of flowers, leaves or feathers.
The new lineup also includes printed velvet or silk dresses, some with hand-painted prints that nod to those in the archive; lightweight cardigans embedded with silk scarf fabric, a lineup of shoppers made from home interiors fabrics, and more formal leather bags lined with different prints.
O’Brien said she’s excited by the “cross-pollination” of interiors and fashion. The showroom display brought all the threads together with clothing and accessories shown against a backdrop of the interiors fabrics that inspired their colors and patterns.
Liberty has been raising its game of late — and not just in fashion and fragrance. Over the summer, the retailer expanded its clothing fabrics floor by 140 percent, taking over an area formerly dedicated to tableware, crockery and small home furnishings.
There are now dedicated areas for private appointments, complete with sofas, chairs and large cutting tables, and a host of added displays for the new fabric designs from the Liberty studio.
The design team is also turning out 20 new, limited-edition fabrics a year, including historic patterns that have been recolored or embellished on cotton or silk; new sequin-embellished fabrics; silk jacquards, linens and twills.
In September, it opened the Fashion Jewellery Gallery, a second jewelry hall that specializes in demi-fine and fashion-led designs. The gallery is meant to complement the fine jewelry hall on Liberty’s ground floor, which specializes in 14- and 18-karat gold pieces, and which has been running out of space due to new brands arriving.
Liberty said jewelry sales are up 20 percent year-over-year, with customers eager to discover new brands, layer jewelry, and wear a mix of metals and of old and new pieces.
Originally published by wwd.com. Syndicated material does not necessarily reflect the views of Cosmopolitan Canada.
