Lia Cowan: A Fashion Brand Rooted in Romance and Ballet, as worn by Derry Girls' Nicola Coughlan 🩰
Lia Cowan’s journey from sculpture to fashion is a captivating story of creativity, transformation, and breaking boundaries in bridalwear and occasionwear.
Hello Tech Powered Luxury listener, and now reader!
🎙️ This week, we’re diving into the world of fashion, sculpture, and bespoke bridalwear with Irish designer Lia Cowan. Known for her statement-making designs, worn by none other than Bridgerton’s Nicola Coughlan, Lia’s journey from sculpture student to art teacher to fashion designer is incredible.
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💎 I’m Laoise O’Connell and I’m very excited to welcome you to this week’s edition!
👀 TL;DR
Lia’s fashion journey took an unconventional path - she studied sculpture at NCAD, dreamed of becoming a teacher, and even spent three years teaching art in secondary school before realising something was missing. 👗
A nudge from her fiancé, Max, who gifted her a sewing machine, set her on a new path. From making scrunchies to launching her namesake brand, Lia Cowan, she’s now a rising star in the fashion industry, moving into the bridal space with a bespoke approach. 👰🏽♀️
Her designs, often sculptural and performative, draw inspiration from movement, ballet, and theatrical costume. With a slow fashion model, she creates custom, one-of-a-kind pieces that aim to continue pushing the boundaries of occasionwear. 💫
Ballet has long influenced fashion, from Chanel’s Ballets Russes costumes to Dior’s New Look, and Lia’s sculptural designs continue this tradition with movement, tulle, and theatrical silhouettes. 🩰
💡 Our exclusive question to Pamela:
Who’s your most unexpected mentor, and what did they teach you?
“Not exactly unexpected, but my partner Max has been a huge influence on me. Seeing him start his career in design from scratch and work his butt off to get to where he is today has been so inspiring. His patience and dedication to his work are things I try to adopt in my practice. Not to mention the endless pep talks and words of wisdom he’s given me over the years. I'm a lucky gal. ❤️”
👗 From Sculpture to Fashion: The Journey of Lia Cowan
Lia’s story is a lesson in following creative instincts. After studying sculpture at NCAD and initially aiming for a teaching career, she realized she craved more hands-on creativity. Always surrounded by art, and with two artist aunts in her family, it felt natural. ✨
She took a short course at the Grafton Academy and later completed a two-year PLC course in Sallynoggin, which helped her hone her technical skills and find her voice in fashion. Interestingly, for those unfamiliar with the Irish education system, this was unconventional (almost taking a reverse route!), making her journey even more inspiring and proving once again that there’s no single path to success. ⭐️
The most difficult learning curve? Pattern drafting was far more mathematical than expected, but her sculpture background gave her a natural understanding of silhouette and draping.
🏆After finishing her studies, Lia entered the Longines Irish Champions Weekend Young Designer Award, with Courtney Smith on the judging panel, and won. This win helped her have the confidence to propel her brand forward.
She started small, selling hairbands (an accessible entry point for customers), but her career took off when Nicola Coughlan’s stylist chose one of Lia’s designs for the actress to wear. A “fever dream” for Lia, the impact on her business was instantaneous.
“If you respect someone and they’re wearing a piece, you automatically trust the brand.”
Other notable supporters, including Louise McSharry, helped solidify her place on the Irish fashion scene.
🎀 Her style? Lia doesn’t do casual. Her designs are all about drama, volume, and making a statement. She describes her work as sculptural and editorial, constantly pushing the boundaries.
“It’s pushing the boundaries of what is acceptable as occasionwear and kind of creating something a bit more magical whether it be really sculptural sleeves or exagerated bows.”
👰🏽♀️ Lia has naturally transitioned into bridalwear, a move she describes as her “favorite thing in the world.”
🤍 The shift happened organically when she released a black-and-white tulle collection, which led brides to reach out for custom dresses. With a higher price point and a clientele seeking one-of-a-kind gowns, bridalwear made perfect sense for her one-woman show.
Her process is deeply personal, involving consultations and multiple fittings to ensure each piece is unique and perfect.
💡 Who’s on Lia’s dream list to wear her designs? Chloë Sevigny, whose edgy style would contrast beautifully with Lia’s soft, feminine designs.
"My designs are like armor, statement pieces that transform you into a more confident version of yourself. If I can gift someone that feeling and help them embody it, then I’ve done my job."
🎭 Lia’s inspiration? Family, Ballet & Theatrical Fashion.
Lia’s aesthetic is deeply rooted in family history. After seeing a photo of her grandmother in a playful bonnet, she became fascinated by the joy of dressing up. This, combined with her background in sculpture and love of ballet (though not a ballerina herself!), shaped her brand’s dramatic silhouettes.
💫 Her fashion influences? Comme des Garçons, Iris van Herpen, and haute couture that transforms fashion into art. She’s also drawn to modular fashion, designing pieces that evolve with the wearer over time.
🚀 So, what’s Next for Lia Cowan? Right now, Lia is focused on custom bridalwear and further developing her skills in that space, with the possibility of creating a dedicated bridal brand. But most importantly, she is focusing on her own upcoming wedding! (We can’t wait to see! 👀)
🫶🏽 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.
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🩰 The Ballet Influence on Fashion
One of the most fascinating aspects of Lia’s work to me is her use of movement, structure, and performative elements in her designs. I find the influence of ballet on fashion so intriguing – it’s a theme that has resurfaced for generations, shaping some of the most iconic looks in history. 🤍
📖 Recently, I read Coco Chanel: An Intimate Life by Lisa Chaney. It recounted how Coco Chanel herself designed costumes for the Ballets Russes in the 1920s, collaborating with Sergei Diaghilev and bringing her signature elegance to the stage. I’d really recommend the book – Chaney does an incredible job of transporting us back to those times and its influences on fashion, and I think it would be particularly interesting for any designers out there.
Then we saw Christian Dior’s 1947 New Look, which embraced the femininity of a ballerina’s silhouette with cinched waists and voluminous skirts, and Alexander McQueen’s ethereal Spring 2008 collection inspired by ballet’s drama and precision. Dance has always been a source of inspiration in fashion. Even more recently, designers like Maria Grazia Chiuri at Dior and Simone Rocha have woven balletcore into modern collections, playing with tulle, corsetry, and exaggerated bows.
This intersection of high fashion and performance certainly continues today, with designers drawing from the grace, discipline, and theatricality of ballet to create pieces that feel both timeless and avant-garde. Even the resurgence of ballet flats, seen in collections from Alaïa, The Row, Miu Miu, and Maison Margiela. 🩰
Lia’s sculptural skirts, flowing tulle, and dynamic silhouettes echo this tradition. Her background in sculpture gives her a unique perspective on how clothing interacts with the body, much like a dancer moving across the stage. It’s not something people often consider, but it’s truly impressive when you think about the level of difficulty involved in recreating this concept.
What’s even more remarkable is how Lia manages to reimagine the idea, making it feel entirely unique to her own aesthetic. ✨
Thank you for reading.
Until next week,
Laoise 🖤
🎁 Community Rewards
Along with her custom dresses, Lia Cowan creates the coolest prints and accessories, and we want one of you to have them!
This week, Lia is offering one lucky member of our community the chance to win an exclusive selection of her beautifully crafted products. The prize includes one of her stunning hairbands, a hair bow, and one of her A3 prints. 💫
Comment below for your chance to win! 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. 💎