Paul Costelloe had a very Irish career. He learned and practised fashion internationally as a migrant in Paris, Milan and New York, and designed for such British institutions as Diana, Princess of Wales, and British Airways at its 1990s zenith.
But he was rooted in the island of Ireland’s terroir, appreciating its fibres, wool and, especially, linen, by fingertip feel as much as eye. Fashion only rediscovered linen after synthetics lost appeal with the oil price shock of the mid 70s. For Ireland, and Costelloe, linen was always an essential resource.
Costelloe, who has died aged 80, sustained his label profitably for 47 years, designing for it to the end: his 2025 collection closed the inaugural Irish fashion week in Dublin in October. Over that period of time, Ireland went from relative national poverty and isolation to a prosperous European country; in 1998, Costelloe, with habitual sass, described Irish women as “ambitious mutton who wouldn’t know style if it tottered up to them on 10-inch heels”.
Within a decade he recanted the bitchery as women smartened up, though they still prioritised realistic daywear, as did Costelloe. He could also bring off surprisingly grand evening clothes, but his instinct was for tailoring – hence commissions for uniforms, including the 2004 Irish Olympic team and Aer Lingus – and intelligent day dresses or casually formal suits, in linen.
That fabric was woven, dyed and printed in Northern Ireland. The clothes manufacturer Strelitz Ltd, of Dungannon, County Tyrone, with its associated linen brand, Moygashel, had been financially strong enough to back Costelloe’s label launch in 1978, and he recalled often driving north across the border from Dublin, car crammed with boxes, learning not to cheek the checkpoint guards during the worst Troubles; both Irelands depended on export trade.
When in 1983 a member of the Princess of Wales’s staff scouted the rails in Costelloe’s little boutique in Windsor (sound choice of location – English county women appreciated his daywear), Costelloe had to be discreet about what became British royal patronage.
He was summoned to Kensington Palace and blundered up the stairs on his size 13 feet; Diana plied him with strong tea and he was certain that what her working wardrobe needed were linen dresses, seeming so coolly English despite their Irish origin. She wore them before cameras all over the world, and Costelloe designed for her until her death in 1997. He already had a sample workshop in London, and began to show in London fashion week in 1984 – he was a fixture there for four decades.
Costelloe was born in Dublin. As he pointed out, he and his older four sisters and two brothers were in fact Irish-American since their mother, Catherine Curran, a teacher, had been born in the Bronx to a migrant Irish family. She was visiting the old country when William Costelloe, from Limerick, and trained as a tailor, proposed and was given family approval.
William had a gift for cloth – his son said he could discern by touch the smallest percentage of polyester in a woven cotton – and went into raincoat production, with a factory in a Dublin suburb. Paul was born in the city. Their big family, in its large house with a walled garden and croquet on the lawn, loved art and kept horses. Some Costelloes hunted; Paul was more interested in the disciplined equine elegance of dressage events. He was to call his American-inflected leisure line after the sport.
A talented artist, he left Blackrock college at 16, uncertificated in education. His parents sent him to work off his wildness in a bacon factory in Waterford, before admission as a rare male student at the Grafton Academy of Fashion Design in Dublin, where he never learned to sew or cut as he could charm female students into those tasks.
His father indulged further study with the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture in Paris, but young Costelloe dropped out to absorb the city, and in 1969 the entertainer and couturier Jacques Esterel, who liked Irish music, gave him snippets of sketch work and atelier experience.
In 1971, Costelloe parlayed those into a job in Milan with Marks & Spencer, which fell through, but he stayed on in the city to create ready-to-wear for the influential department store La Rinascente. Italians shared his respect for textiles (much later, he established a factory in Ancona). His next move was to New York in 1974, where he worked in Manhattan’s then-huge mass-produced garment trade, first for the Anne Fogarty label, then freelance.
On his return to Ireland in 1978, Costello had wide enough experience to bridge the tradition of Dublin’s small artisan designers and the island’s ready-to-wear manufacturing businesses, which did well before the global fashion industry began to offshore production intercontinentally. He complained that he had never attracted the investment level that elevated his fellow textile wranglers Giorgio Armani and Ralph Lauren into world brands – he had to chase each collaboration himself, phoning up Margaret Heffernan, director of Ireland’s Dunnes Stores chain to propose a line of homewares, later adding economy fashion for women and men. As a consequence, he enjoyed Irishmen greeting him in the street with: “I’m wearing one of your jumpers, Paul.”
Costelloe was recognised as a national asset, however, and judged himself lucky to have built and bred a durable family firm. He had a design studio in central London from the late 90s, and cycled between there and his house in Putney. He kept a home in Dublin, too.
In 1979 he had seen Anne Connor on a railway platform wearing high heels, socks, and a bow in her hair, with one of his skirts, and introduced himself as its designer. They married, and had seven children, Jessica, William, Robert, Gavin, Justin, Paul-Emmet and Nicholas, many working in or with the firm.
He is survived by Anne and his children.
