Roisin Pierce AW25

As I approached the Irish Embassy and ascended the blue carpeted grand staircase on Avenue Foch I was very excited to return to a Roisin Pierce show. It has been a few seasons since I had attended one and this designer's haunting garments have always resonated with me. Róisín Pierce’s AW25 collection, "Nothing Pure Can Stay", wasn’t just a show, it was a whispered elegy to fleeting beauty, a tactile sonnet spun from lace and longing. The title, borrowed from Sylvia Plath and Vladimir Nabokov, set the tone; delicate, melancholic, and achingly romantic.

Pierce’s muse this season was the snowflake; ephemeral, intricate, vanishing before you can grasp it. Her designs mirrored this paradox; voluminous smocked ruffles, sheer lace gowns, and crochet lattice bags, all crafted using traditional Irish techniques. The palette consisted of black, blue and white; evoking purity and quiet transformation, while headpieces adorned with sweet, almost edible appliqués added a whimsical touch.

Simon Parris’s score wove Pierce’s own recitations of Plath and Nabokov with her mother Angie’s haunting rendition of “My Lagan”, a traditional Irish folk song. Every piece demanded days of handwork, from pin-tucked tube dresses to spiraling floral embroideries. Pierce’s collaboration with Polène (lattice-clad leather bags) and Stephen Jones’s pistil-adorned headpieces hinted at commercial ambition, but the heart of the work remained fiercely artisanal. “They’re time-consuming, but you forge a deep attachment”, she noted.

As models glided through the gilded salons, the collection’s duality crystallized; ethereal yet grounded, romantic yet threaded with darker histories (Magdalene laundries, Plath’s Lady Lazarus). Comme des Garçons’ endorsement, via Adrian Joffe’s praise for her “poetic charm”, felt inevitable. Leaving, I felt as if the melancholic collection was disappearing slowly from my mind but remained as a bittersweet feeling in my heart. Pierce’s genius lies in making impermanence tangible. And in that, "Nothing Pure Can Stay" was pure magic.