Colm Dillane: From guest designer at Louis Vuitton to the pub in Rathdowney
Colm Dillane: KidSuper label man and self-taught designer
The week after Colm Dillane presented his menswear collection as guest designer for Louis Vuitton at Paris Fashion Week to a thousand guests, with a performance by RosalĂa, he could be found in the local pub in Rathdowney.
Less caviar and champagne, more crisps and craic, the Irish-American was visiting his extended family in Laois, a place where he has spent summer holidays for most of his life.
âWhen you say youâre Irish in America, everyoneâs Irish. If youâre a little bit white, youâre Irish. But Iâm more Irish than the average Irish person in America,â Dillane, who holds an Irish passport and whose father hails from Rathdowney, says over Zoom.
Louis Vuitton, the international megabrand with hundreds of stores around the world, which surpassed $20bn in revenue in 2022, is a tall order for any designer. Founded in 1854, its menswear division reached new heights in the late 2010s under the artistic direction of Virgil Abloh, a visionary creative who died of a rare form of cancer in November 2021, known for his graphic collections and fashion show spectacles that captured the attention of millions around the globe. Fashion critic Eugene Rabkin likened the position of menâs artistic director to âwielding the Excalibur of luxuryâ.
On January 19, Dillane tried his hand at the biggest brand in fashion. There was some abstract and outsize tailoring, either in muted tones or illuminated with graphic prints; jackets with portraits of a face, speckled with the LV monogram; technical outerwear and grungy denim; a broad offering that echoed the allegory of the sprawling set, in a tent in the courtyard of the Louvre, depicting a house and a coming-of-age story. His imprint was indelible on a suit spliced together from letters written by the studio team and on the closing looks emblazoned with his paintings.
From the elaborate scenography, the accompanying film fed online through the brandâs channels, and the performance from international sensation RosalĂa, it was not your average fashion show.
âAverageâ is not the word one would use to describe Dillane, 31, whose predilection for creativity and commerce became evident when he was in high school selling t-shirts in the cafeteria. Later came the hoodies, jackets, and hats in his dorm at New York University, where he was evicted in his sophomore year for spray-painting his walls and turning his room into a store.
Average is certainly not the word to describe his childhood, spent shuttling between different locales from Mexico to Wisconsin before he finally settled in his native New York at 13 with his Irish father and Spanish mother.
It wouldnât be right to call KidSuper, his fashion label that propelled him to the most important room in the fashion industry, average either. After he was kicked out of his dorm at university, Dillane transformed a store into a multi-purpose shop and studio with living quarters in the back. Around the same time, he started collaborating with musicians on merchandise design or album art.
Over the next 10 years, he channelled his infectious charisma into a brand signature and a fully-fledged clothing line â sardonic streetwear, you could call it. In a decade, Dillane challenged the norm with an exuberant interpretation of a fashion category oversaturated with irascible collectors and legions of copyists. Childlike whimsy informs scribbles, sketches, and paintings that typically adorn KidSuper hoodies, lounge pants, and T-shirts, and serious sneakerheads would balk at his frivolous footwear.
Dillaneâs ascension to Paris Fashion Week was not without difficulty. His tenacity was not lost on the FĂ©dĂ©ration de la Haute Couture et de la Mode, the governing body of Paris Fashion Week, who after three rejections, finally admitted KidSuper to the official calendar.
âQuitting was not an option. I never lost any motivation when I was hit with obstacles, I thought they were quite fun and exciting, actually,â says Dillane, who put on shows in Paris anyway, and even superimposed his rejection letter on a tie-dyed dress.
âAs a young designer, youâre trying to compete with big brands and youâre on their level in many ways, in terms of doing Paris Fashion Week and coming up with the same amount of collections. Youâre competing on the same stage but you donât have anywhere near the same resources.â
If anything, the Irish-American is a consummate showman and as resourceful as they come. During lockdown, he delivered videos that didnât disappoint from a stop-motion fashion show starring gussied-up dolls in the latest KidSuper collection. When the world reopened and he finally held his first physical presentation, he turned the show into an auction of his paintings which inspired the looks we saw on the runway.
His acceptance into the elite circle of brands that show on the official Paris Fashion Week schedule partly owed to the LVMH Prize, an award for emerging designers under 40, who named Dillane a runner-up for the Karl Lagerfeld prize. It was also his introduction to the Louis Vuitton team who subsequently asked him to participate in an exhibition about their history in luggage.
âI was pretty shocked and excited about [being asked],â says Dillane, who received the call that he was considered as a guest designer back in August 2022.
When he was asked to present ideas to then-CEO Michael Burke, Dillane spent many sleepless nights cobbling together a 500-page manifesto with a multitude of show concepts and design ideas. He spent the next 6 months working in collaboration with the in-house team.
Two days after the Louis Vuitton show, as if his gruelling schedule was not exhausting enough, he put on a KidSuper comedy show in place of a traditional fashion show.
âI had this idea before I got the LV gig and I thought, âshould I change this now because people might not take me seriously as a designer?â But what other designer could do LV on Thursday and a comedy show on Saturday. Pretty cool.âÂ
Tyra Banks, veteran supermodel and erstwhile host of Americaâs Next Top Model, came out of retirement to MC the event. She opened with an anecdote about how she started her career on Paris runways and when she was invited back, her first question was, âwho the hell is KidSuper?â The audience laughed.
But Dillane is having the last laugh. By the time the show came around, he was the most talked about man in Paris. The show filled the Casino de Paris. Hundreds of adoring fans lined the streets outside. The police had to be called. Commotion? Carnage? The KidSuper effect?
All to catch a glimpse of comedians such as Jeff Ross, Yvonne Orji, and Anthony Schulz offer incendiary quips about various fashion controversies from Balenciaga to Kanye West, while dressed in new KidSuper. It was genuinely funny and an amusing concept that knocked a bunch of tired fashion editors, ferrying between shows in each corner of the city, out of a stupor.
Despite his best efforts, Dillaneâs stint at Louis Vuitton would be short-lived. On February 14, the role of artistic director, which has been vacant since Ablohâs passing, was bestowed upon multi-hyphenate Pharrell Williams. It marked the first move by Pietro Beccari, the companyâs new CEO, who was installed a few weeks before the menâs show. Many in the industry waxed rhapsodical about the appointment while others lamented the fact that the position of power shouldâve gone to a real designer. (Bear in mind, Dillane isnât formally trained. Itâs something he admits himself.)Â
Yet Dillane isnât wasting a minute to think about what could have been with Louis Vuitton; rather heâs funneling his energy into what could be because of Louis Vuitton.
Thereâll be more extravagant concepts, Dillane says he has about 15 collection ideas in his back pocket. In six or seven months, his collection for Louis Vuitton will hit shops and will mean another wave of press.
In the meantime, between picking up phone calls from a wide range of big brands who want Dillane to design for them, he is designing merchandise for his uncleâs chipper, the Hungry Knight in Sneem. (âThe support from Ireland has been amazing,â in the aftermath of the show. Long may it continue, he says.) From the biggest luxury brand in the world to a family-owned chip shop in Kerry, the Irish-American is the most unserious fashion designer with serious prospects.
At the Paris Fashion Week comedy show, Jeff Ross summoned Dillane to the stage to congratulate him on his success.
âYour clothes are a conversation starter,â he said. ââWhat the fuck are you wearing? ⊠and how do I get that?â
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