Fashion OG Lorraine Keane on the Xposé Days to Fashion Relief and Speaking Up About Menopause 🎥

Lorraine Keane shares her journey from a successful broadcasting career to volunteering in developing countries and leading an impactful fashion initiative in Ireland.

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Feb 04, 2025

Hello Tech Powered Luxury listener, and now reader!

🎙️ This week, we shine light on Lorraine Keane - broadcaster, entrepreneur and champion for social impact. From interviewing A-list celebrities on red carpets to creating impactful charitable initiatives, Lorraine’s story is one of pure passion.

🌟 Are you new here? Welcome to our amazing community - keep reading to discover everything about Tech Powered Luxury, our Community Rewards and how this newsletter came to life.

💎 I’m Laoise O’Connell and I’m very excited to welcome you to this week’s edition!

👀 TL;DR

From her early days on AA Roadwatch to becoming a household name through TV3’s Xposé, Lorraine carved a path that took her across the globe - dancing with Bono, singing with Paul Young, and rubbing shoulders with Victoria Beckham.
Pivoting to freelance work allowed Lorraine to create Fashion Relief, an initiative that has raised over €250,000 for charity while promoting conscious consumption.
While consumer efforts are vital in conquering sustainability, the true impact of fashion lies in a top-down approach where brands integrate sustainability at the core of their business models.

Watch and Listen

💡 Our exclusive question:

Who’s your most unexpected mentor, and what did they teach you?

“I had a mentor from the age of about 17—a woman who influenced me in many ways and in many areas of my life, both personally and professionally. Her name was Elizabeth Ravaud (née Mannion). Born in Terenure, Liz moved to Paris in her early 20s to write for a young women’s magazine. Liz—or Tantie Lizzie, as I called her—was my boyfriend’s aunt at the time, but she became one of my best friends. We remained close for years after my then-boyfriend and I broke up, until she passed away almost 20 years ago in her early 50s.
She lived between Dún Laoghaire and Paris, wrote for The Sunday Tribune in Ireland, and was a Paris correspondent for BBC Radio. She is the reason I fell in love with the southeast coast of Dublin (where I have lived for almost 30 years now) and the reason I adore everything French. I bought a house in France 18 years ago and sent my daughters to a French school in Dublin for primary school, all because of Liz.
Liz also most definitely influenced my choice of career. As an avid reader, I found the whole area of media and communications fascinating, especially broadcast journalism. I loved hearing and reading her stories about who she interviewed, where she traveled, and the various subjects she reported on—from the arts to current affairs and women’s health.
Liz was a massive supporter of women and women’s rights and was an incredible support to me. She was also the most interesting person to be around, and, in a time when so many things were not spoken about, no subject was too embarrassing for Liz to discuss or write about. Refreshingly honest, Liz loved nothing more than to shock and loved being bold. She was vivacious, cultured, and so much fun.
She called me her “protégée.” She always followed that by saying, “In the true sense of the word, chérie.” If you look up the dictionary, the word in French means “protected one.” I feel blessed to have known and been protected by Elizabeth Ravaud. I miss her every day.”

👗 Fashion with a Purpose: Lorraine Keane’s Stylish Approach to Giving Back

Lorraine Keane’s career is the epitome of inspiration. As one of Ireland’s most beloved broadcasters and journalists, she has seamlessly transitioned from delivering hard-hitting news to gracing red carpets and hosting entertainment shows and finally to founding Fasion Relief, a company which truly gives back. All this while launching Decadence, her own gradual tanning cream, along with a stunning candle range (keep reading for your chance to win some of these gorgeous products!).

Her early broadcasting days on AA Roadwatch (live traffic show for non-Irish readers) laid the groundwork for her rise to TV3 television channel, where she became a fixture in Irish homes, interviewing legends like Dolly Parton and attending the Oscars. She has certainly earned a loyal following on Irish TV, but her influence extends far beyond the screen.

Beyond the glamour, Lorraine’s vision was clear: to tell stories that matter. In her transition to freelance, she discovered flexibility and decided that she would bring stories from developing countries who were experiencing much hardship back to Ireland.

“It started when I became freelance and suddenly had more than 20 days of holiday a year. I had always talked about how, one day, I was going to go to the developing world and use the skill set TV3 had given me—where I could direct, present, produce, edit, research, and do all of that. When I finally owned my own time, I thought, I’m going to do this.”

This launched her into many trips with NGOs including to Zimbabwe, Haiti and specifically Bangladesh which was a place that revealed to her the human cost of fast fashion.

The trip ultimately inspired her to launch Fashion Relief, where preloved and high-end fashion meets sustainability and charitable impact. Every euro raised goes to Breast Cancer Ireland. Thanks to the generosity of the Irish community, Lorraine has demonstrated that style and sustainability can coexist, inspiring many to embrace a more ethical approach to fashion.

“Coming back from that Bangladesh trip, and looking around me, I thought, ‘Oh my god, I have so much stuff… some of us have way too much stuff.’ And because of my job, I had been gifted so much stuff over the last 30 years, so you can imagine. And even though I have two daughters, and you could say, ‘Oh well, keep them for your daughters,’ why? Your daughters mightn’t even want it, and actually, even if they did, they need to work for their stuff too. The people that I met need it now! They can’t wait!”

Beyond this amazing work, Lorraine has also been a trailblazer in women’s health advocacy. More than a decade ago, she began speaking openly about menopause—long before it became a widely discussed topic—after experiencing early-onset symptoms herself.

Lorraine is an incredible woman, inspiring not only through her achievements but also through her refusal to stay confined to one path. Her career journey is a true masterclass in passion, persistence, and purpose.

Her mantra?

Follow your passion, work hard, and don’t be afraid to fail.

Her advice for anyone starting out?

“The job you want is out there, and there’s no reason why it shouldn’t be yours.”

At Tech Powered Luxury, we’re passionate about this topic and have featured incredible women in past seasons, such as Aoife McNamara, Rachel Hennessy from Happy Days Fashion Rental, and Hasna Kourda from Save Your Wardrobe, with more to come this season, including Anne-Marie Tomchak. These women place sustainability at the heart of their work, showing us that while the fashion industry has caused significant harm, it also has the power to be a force for positive change.

If you’re based in Dublin, head over to Fashion Relief at the Frascati Centre in Blackrock. I’m often in Blackrock because I am studying at UCD Smurfit, so I’m long overdue for a visit! As mentioned, all funds raised go to Breast Cancer Ireland. 💖

🫶🏽 Our Partner This Season: Azure Communications

This season’s sponsor of the Tech Powered Luxury podcast is Azure Communications, and we’re thrilled to continue our partnership with them. For quite some time now, Azure has been our go-to provider for all things print and marketing. Whether it’s branded materials for our content, from print and direct mail to event invitations, they’ve been behind the scenes making it all happen.

If you’re looking for top-tier branded collateral, print services, or marketing support, we highly recommend checking them out.

You can visit them at www.azurecomm.ie or follow them on Instagram at @AzureCommunications.

🌟 The True Power of Circular Fashion: Brands Leading with Sustainability at Their Core

Fashion and luxury brands with sustainability at their core are leading a powerful shift in the industry, one where sustainability and ethical responsibility are no longer just trends, CSR ambitions, or blatant greenwashing, but essential, foundational values.

This growing movement is reflected in figures like Lorraine Keane, whose work underscores the importance of integrating sustainability and philanthropy into the heart of a brand’s mission. While this isn’t a new concept—Stella McCartney has long championed fur-free and leather-free fashion—the brands emerging today are more crucial than ever. Stella’s ethos has paved the way for others to follow, demonstrating that luxury fashion can thrive without compromising ethics or the planet.

Stella McCartney SS24. Photography by Harley Weir

Over the past decade, the conversation around sustainability has shifted from a niche topic to a mainstream imperative. The driving force behind this transformation? The consumer. Today’s shoppers are more informed and demand transparency from the brands they support. This has led to a major rethinking of how luxury brands operate, with many embracing ethical labor practices and environmental sustainability as core principles.

The rise of resale platforms like ThredUp, Poshmark, and Vestiaire Collective has reshaped how we view luxury items, making second-hand shopping not just acceptable but desirable. Furthermore, platforms like Vinted (finally in Ireland!), Depop, and eBay are thriving, with even the shift from “second-hand” to “pre-loved” playing a great role in changing the narrative around sustainability in fashion. In Ireland, initiatives like Happy Days Fashion Rental and Drobey are leading the charge, proving that renting and reusing can be just as fashionable as buying new.

The future of fashion hinges on its ability to adapt to these new consumer expectations, embracing circular fashion as the way forward. As more influencers, designers, and consumers join the movement, the industry is shifting toward a more ethical, sustainable, and responsible future. However, the real power lies in a top-down approach, where companies, as highlighted above, take proactive action.

🎁 Community Rewards

We know how challenging the winter months can be, so this week, we’re thrilled to offer a community reward that’s perfect for uplifting your self-care routine and banishing those winter blues. We’re giving away two luxurious treats: the Decadence Gradual Tanning Cream for face and body, and the beautiful Indulge Candle Trio by Lorraine Keane.

Don’t miss this chance to add a little indulgence to your routine. Simply comment on this Substack post and follow both Lorraine Keane and Tech Powered Luxury on Instagram to enter. Best of luck! ☺️

💫 Who are we and what led us here today?

🎙️ Launched as a podcast on November 1st 2022 by Ashley McDonnell, Tech Powered Luxury has since nurtured a vibrant community of experts passionate about the evolving synergy between technology and luxury. We have reached over 20 million people through the podcast, social platforms and media, and have hit +500K downloads.

🪄 This season, our weekly newsletter will be curated by Laoise O’Connell, a luxury marketeer with experience in client relations and communications at fashion houses and global brands Chanel and Givenchy in Paris. Laoise has been a proud contributor to Tech Powered Luxury since Season 1 and we are excited to have her guide our content for the newsletter this season and look forward to the insights she will bring. 💎

A guest post by

Laoise O'Connell

Tech Powered Luxury