A funny thing happened on the way to the forum (The Currency of course!). Two people, in the same week, towards the end of a bleak November, used a metaphor I had never heard before.
Firstly, in the august surroundings of the Abbey Theatre, Sean Scully, world-renowned and officially Ireland’s tenth favourite artist, in the course of a fascinating dissertation on his life and work, said: “Art flies over everything.”

Three days later in a minimalist office in Anne’s Lane South in Dublin, Shelly Corkery, fashion director of Brown Thomas, explaining the complexities of high-end retail said: “Fashion flies over everything.”
Scully’s statement was a conclusion – a laconic summary of the ethereal world which the artist roams. Corkery’s was an opening – a dynamic exposition of the material world the fashion buyer inhabits.
And yet their worlds are not as far apart as might be imagined. Not because fashion is art (though many designers are artists) but because both rely hugely on imagination. 

“Less is more, they say. Well it isn’t. Less is less.”

Artist Sean Scully

I imagine Scully would appreciate the giant spikey rose emblazoned on Corkery’s skirt as she explodes into the room. And she certainly would appreciate his travails with the New York art world when he decided to abandon minimalism. “Less is more, they say,” he said. “Well it isn’t. Less is less.”

Shelly, like the material girl of the song, knows that more is more. That’s the whole point of retail – it has to be, since retail is the engine that drives most economies.

Two days after our meeting, the Irish retail quarterly results are announced. For the first time in months, they’re up. A good omen for what Corkery calls “the golden quarter.” The Christmas period. 

Despite this good news, it’s no secret that the world of fashion retail is struggling; House of Fraser is gone, Topshop is going in Ireland, Debenhams is rationalising. And God knows how many small boutiques have quietly faded. 

It’s like the high street is caught in a deadly riptide. Yet the big ship Brown Thomas sails steadily on – with some powerful ballast keeping it buoyant. 

Meeting Corkery, you begin to understand why. 

“In this business, there are meetings every hour – sometimes every half hour. It’s essential.”

Shelly Corkery

She is a dynamo. She has so many thoughts and ideas, that sometimes it’s as if her words can’t keep up with her ideas. What prompted the philosophical observation about flying was a long meeting she’d just come from. “You’re looking down at all the projects; marketing, buying, online, design team store operations, the techie stuff. HR and creative buyers.” And more.

She works with all these teams. “In this business, there are meetings every hour – sometimes every half hour. It’s essential. So that all the departments can learn from one another.” And it’s not just meetings about facts and figures. “You have to be inclusive. Not exclusive. You have to be able to explore their minds.” 

As if all that wasn’t enough, she has to know what will sell. Because without that, there is nothing. 

Shelly Corkery
Shelly Corkery says the recent boom and bust cycles have affected what people wear. Photo: Bryan Meade

“A great fashion buyer has to be over everything,” she says. In her listing of the interests of the buyer –“people, music, film, journalism, art, travel” – she is at one with the eminent French philosopher and semiologist Roland Barthes who, in his seminal work Système de la mode, insisted fashion was as important a cultural transaction as music, film, politics or art. As with these, the signs and symbols of fashion tell us much about the society we inhabit at any given time. 

Sounds fanciful? Consider the late 1970s and early 1980s in Britain when the riots on streets – the miners’ unions and later the poll tax riots – were met with Vivienne Westwood’s punky fashion revolution. In her shop World’s End, a terrible beauty of asymmetric, vagabond clothes, piercings, chains and leather was born. Fifty years on, that dissonant aesthetic lingers as Brexit Britain still tries to shake off the effects of Margaret Thatcher’s arid policies.

“Maximalism is coming”

Shelly Corkery has always been alert to the social change that reflects in fashion. During the recession, she once explained, special event wear died. Nobody bought clothes for going out anymore: hemlines shortened. The store adapted – non-Irish buyers were attracted by the headlining handbag hall. It’s still booming. “We have to erect barriers at Vuitton on Saturdays.” 

Now, recession over, she tells me “Fashion is changing. Party wear is huge. No more minimalism. Maximalism is coming.” (Didn’t I tell you she and Sean Scully had much in common!)

If in fashion, change is the only rule and necessity is the mother of reinvention, why are so many stores in trouble?   

“It’s definitely the effects of online shopping,” she says. Even to the uneducated eye, shopfront or what Corkery calls “bricks and mortar” is more of a challenge. “Online is huge. It’s very, very big business but it’s not just online versus bricks and mortar,” she insists. “It’s that the trip to the store has to be an experience – something you go away thinking about. Coming into the store is a social experience.” 

This idea – shopping as a social experience – is second nature to Shelly Corkery, who is from Cork, where social interaction is paramount, civic pride high and people put on their best to go to the shops. 

“Shopping has to be an experience if you’re going to buy stuff,” she says. “We don’t see online and bricks and mortar as separate. We see ourselves as omni channel. Shopfront is necessary to promote the online business. The challenge is bringing it closer to the bricks and mortar – in other words, the store.” 

“People are buying better. Not looking for disposable clothes anymore.”

Shelly Corkery

But how do you do that? “By creating theatre.” Just like that? If it was easy, wouldn’t everyone be doing it?

She takes the case of young people. “Everyone says they do all their shopping online but that’s not true. They don’t. They, above all, want their shopping to be more of an experience. They want more knowledge. They want to join in the pilates class. In the store. They are very interested in the activities of the store. They want them.”

And here’s the thing. “They want sustainability. They’re really interested in it. People are buying better. Not looking for disposable clothes anymore.” 

Shelly Corkery
Shelly Corkery is keenly aware of young people’s concerns, but not in isolation: “They’re people.” Photo: Bryan Meade

She is keenly aware of the role played by the fashion industry in polluting the planet. “The fashion business is one big contender for making change. Because it’s probably the second biggest culprit. The planet is changing. We can all do little things and if we all do little things, things will eventually change.” 

She pauses. “But who’s going to lead the changes? As a leader, you can only do what you can do.” As always, the tragedy of the commons – unless everyone does it, it won’t be successful – is the obstacle, and we digress briefly to China. But Corkery didn’t get where she is today by focussing on the negatives. “We can’t control the uncontrollable. But that can’t be an excuse. If we don’t have leaders, nothing gets done. But as a leader you can only do what you can do.”
So what has Brown Thomas done? 

“We’re changed our packaging, we’re changing our lighting, we’re looking at our carbon footprint. Every single bag has been recycled. The lighting is changing to LED. We’re into circular fashion – a great concept. We have events like our Bring Back days where we invite customers to bring in clothes they don’t want and Vestiaire agree a price with them. The Marvel Room currently has three pop-up pre-owned and pre-loved projects; jewellery with Adams, handbags with Siopaella and watches (Vestiaire.)” 

This being fashion, nothing is just pre-owned, it’s also pre-loved. 

“I first left home in Cork at 17 to live in Paris for a year. When I came back, I left home properly, by which I mean I went out to work.”

Shelly Corkery

Interestingly she sees much through the prism of young people, though she refuses to follow that marketing chimera – the eternally elusive young people’s pound. “They’re people,” she says firmly.

Given that the youth market is the matrix in which sustainability and online shopping developed, it comes as no surprise that, despite her refusal to see them as a separate species, she has an innate understanding of their world. Having a seventeen-year-old daughter undoubtedly helps.

We talk about the phenomenon of anxiety in young people. “I think it’s a lot to do with the digital world. Every Christmas, my daughter wants a new device; a phone, an iPad – but this generation never phone each other. It’s all texting, Instagram and Snapchatting.” 

The social isolation experienced by this generation, she feels, may have begun earlier. “My daughter never went out on the road to play, like I did.” The digital world may merely be compounding a deeper social shift. 

“I first left home in Cork at 17 to live in Paris for a year. When I came back, I left home properly, by which I mean I went out to work. I was prepared to take responsibility. I was quite driven. 

“I cannot see many nineteen-year-olds today being prepared to take the kind of responsibility I did – they would be mid-twenties before they reach that stage. So many do third-level education, but they can’t afford to move out of home, which leads to their being mollycoddled. And of course they live on the internet.”

Her analysis is astute but not jaundiced. “This generation is kind and they love kindness. And of course they have to deal with drugs, which are everywhere.”

Patience and perpetual motion

Role models and mentors were never more important, she feels. 

“All my life I have had amazing mentors. Michelle Kavanagh of the Powerscourt Townhouse and Nikki Creedon of Havana, where I first learned selling. As I moved into buying I had one mentor who was a giant. From him, Paul Kelly (her life partner) I learned delegation – he is the best delegator of people in the business. From Stephen Seely who was our MD for 19 years, I learned to listen and wait, to wait for things to pan out.” 

Patience is perhaps not the first quality you would put on the job specification for her job. A great fashion buyer has to be creative, has to be ahead of the posse at all times, to be able to see around corners, to feel under the radar – in short to be in perpetual motion. This combination of creativity and organisational skill requires an ability that’s almost preternatural. 

Corkery has a good way of describing it. “I look at a team of people and I can feel the energy.” 

Shelly Corkery
Shelly Corkery: “Retail is changing, like the whole world in fact, at a very fast pace.” Photo: Bryan Meade

She would need to. She leads a large fashion team and has huge areas of responsibility. “We have Arnotts, as well as all the Brown Thomases and BT2. All our stores are different. All the brandings are different. Relationships are very important with the brands and I have to maintain those relationships. All the customer profiles are different and that’s very important. You’ve got to be able to take it all in. You’ve got to have the energy for it. It’s all about making decisions.”

If this sounds daunting, she’s having none of it. “Having teams of people around you all the time is the lovely part. You’re never on your own. It’s very collaborative and my job is to keep close to everything.”

Everything includes fashion shows, which send a powerful message to the customer. It includes Corkery’s passion project Create, which has been going for ten years now and which, as well as being an invaluable showcase for Irish designers, also promotes young fashion graduates. And of course, it includes the company’s philanthropic projects, like the huge annual show for the ISPCC. 

“A good leader listens, motivates, gives the team time and tries to get them to accept responsibility.”

Shelly Corkery

Not surprisingly, she has given a great deal of thought to leadership. 

“Retail is changing, like the whole world in fact, at a very fast pace.

“Leaders make change happen – have to be the first to change in fact – by their example. A good leader listens, motivates, gives the team time and tries to get them to accept responsibility.”

Much of this can be found in leadership manuals. But Corkery has something else, something I can only call the spirit of fashion – an ability to be in touch with the zeitgeist. When I ask her about the future, she talks about the store, about creating more fun, more theatre. 

And then she says: “In business, no matter which end you work, you have to have awareness, create an environment where kindness can prevail. Kindness is a lovely thing in the world.”

That’s fashion.