Emporium: ‘We want to be remembered for changing streetwear culture in Ireland’

Robbie Fidgeon Kavanagh

Emporium is a streetwear and lifestyle brand founded by friends in 2018.

Starting as a project designed in our bedrooms, Emporium has risen to become a cult favourite streetwear brand in Dublin and further afield. Myself and Charlie met during college, where an interest in streetwear and the subcultures surrounding it brought us together. Neither of us has a background in fashion design or business, but our ‘love of the game’ drove us forward.

Our mission is to create something meaningful to Dublin’s fashion culture. 

We want to plant a flag for Ireland on the global scale and to produce high-quality pieces that stand the test of time.

I fell in love with the subcultures that surround fashion before anything involving design came into the picture.

Everything that followed has been a happy accident.

Emporium produces seasonal collections of cut-and-sew apparel. 

Everything from heavyweight graphic tees, right through to workwear jackets and accessories. Starting out printing on blanks in 2018, we’ve morphed into a brand producing high-quality pieces from head to toe.

We honestly didn’t think about things too much when we started out. 

We used money from our part-time jobs to make a run of T-shirts, and we were just happy to be able to break even. It wasn’t until we started dreaming bigger that we had to start thinking like a real business!

Lead with your best line.

Be it an Instagram post, a pitch deck, or a wholesale catalogue – if you don’t catch someone’s attention in the first couple of seconds, they’ll look away. Make the most of that opportunity. (Thanks Ed for the advice!)

There are so many Irish brands I love.

Too many to name – I am biased, but Arnold Park Studios is the truth.

It’s a work in progress but we’re learning to delegate and to place trust in others to get us there. 

Making the most of each other’s strengths, and covering each other’s weaknesses, has been key in our success thus far.

Opening day was wild, seeing artists like Kojaque and KhakiKid wearing pieces on stage never gets old too.

We’ve got a couple of projects coming up that we’re hyped about, you’ll hear more about them soon, but keep an eye on us around Electric Picnic, keep an eye on Brown Thomas too…

I want our brand to be remembered for changing streetwear culture in Ireland.

I want our customers to remember us for being a brand for the people, by the people – one doing it right.

If I could have anyone wear our designs it would be Jeff Staple, famous for the Pigeon Dunks with Nike, or Stéphane Ashpool of Pigalle.

Charlie Proctor-Quigley

I was always quite creative as a kid, really into Lego.

In school, I was interested in subjects like maths, technical drawing and engineering which led me to study mechanical engineering in college which I quickly found wasn’t for me. During my time in college, I noticed I could teach myself how to design and move my designs from paper into the digital space through software like Photoshop and Illustrator. I started out as a graphic designer, but working within the commercial fashion industry. Through this, I learnt a lot more about garment production and I’m still deepening my knowledge in the garment design world and really enjoying the journey!

For the past couple of months, we’ve been working on samples of a heavy cotton twill trouser which we’re excited for everyone to see.

We’re also in the process of reconstructing a jacket design we previously made. We made the first run in 2022 and we love the sample, but when it came to our previous full production, we felt the garment lacked the quality we strive to achieve. This reproduction of the style is coming in at a much better quality, and we’re hyped to drop them. I’m really excited about the garment areas we’re developing into.

The first couple of years – until late 2020 – were a learning curve for us. 

We were both 18/19 and with no background in design or business, so it was all trial and error on a really small scale. I do think money concerns became more scary when we started to fund projects, and our growth, out of our own pockets when we started to grow post Covid.

My favourite fashion purchases are normally vintage pieces or one of ones.

My Needles ‘7 Cuts’ shirt is a personal favourite, and a Ralph Lauren patchwork shirt I bought recently.

There are loads of Irish brands I love. 

To name a few, Arnold Park Studios, Pellador, Rashhiiid, Robyn Lynch and MNLY/Galán by Jamie Manley.

Be ready to fail, accept the learning, and go again.

Seeing the queue outside of the shop on our opening day is one of my proudest moments so far.

And getting our pieces into boutiques in Japan, we’re stocked by five retailers out there now.

If I could have anyone wear our designs it would be Nigo, Sean Wotherspoon and Hector Bellerin.

Photography by Emporium, emporiumdublin.com