conor o’driscoll 2025 WEST - tank & t-shirt drape: This tank & t-shirt drape is constructed from soft cotton jersey and ribbed jersey, merging two everyday garments into one sculptural form. Sewn together so that the tank twists and folds over the t-shirt, the piece creates a layered effect that transforms a basic silhouette into an experimental styling element. As part of the West collection, it continues the exploration of wrapping and subversion, challenging the straightforward utility of Western dress. The design draws inspiration from Wim Wenders’ 1984 film Paris, Texas, where themes of dislocation, estrangement, and fractured identity are mirrored in the garment’s twisting construction. Just as the film unsettles traditional narratives of the American West, this piece disrupts the conventions of casualwear, turning familiar garments into a layered commentary on memory, place, and transformation.

conor o’driscoll 2025 WEST - self wrap dress shirt: This wrap dress shirt, cut from white brushed cotton shirting, features an extended back yoke that creates the illusion of a shirt folding and wrapping over itself. As part of the West collection, it connects to a series of garments that explore wrapping, layering, and styling as transformative gestures. The design also references Joseph Beuys’ 1974 performance I Like America and America Likes Me, in which the artist swathed himself in felt and shared a confined space with a coyote to confront ideas of violence, healing, and myth within the American landscape. Echoing this act of wrapping as both protection and confrontation, the shirt reinterprets classic Western shirting while subverting its rigidity. By embedding this dialogue into the garment, the piece reflects a broader critique of the West as both a place of mythmaking and a structure to be unraveled.

This handsewn, handknitted dress brings together silk draping, mohair knit, and rose petals encased in pleated silk to create a garment suspended between fragility and edge. The mohair tank was knit by hand in ivory wool with varied needle sizes, resulting in an irregular, organic structure that shapes itself freely on the body. Behind it, a silk drape softens the silhouette, while pleated silk petals are stitched and tacked into place, adding dimension and movement. The process of free-knitting and hand-sewing emphasizes improvisation, imperfection, and material sensitivity, allowing the piece to evolve as it was made.

Part of the Lost Highway collection, the look draws on David Lynch’s 1997 film and its enigmatic blonde character, Alice Wakefield / Renee Madison (Patricia Arquette). Her portrayal of duality, allure, and disquiet inspired the garment’s play of exposure and concealment — sheer silk against textured knit, delicacy against rough edges. The petals suggest both beauty and decay, mirroring the film’s tension between desire and unease. In this way, the dress becomes an embodiment of “perfect imperfection,” a fragile yet confrontational piece that reimagines sex appeal and vulnerability through a distinctly avant-garde lens.

conor o’driscoll 2024 Lost Highway - mink collar: This mink collar, from the Lost Highway collection, is rooted in the duality of Alice / Renee’s beauty — particularly the haunting scene where her blonde hair glows against the car. The closure takes the form of a key, evoking the constant presence of cars throughout the film and their role as symbols of power, escape, and fate. Crafted from mink repurposed from an old fur coat, the piece is lined with silk and finished with a layered internal print. Due to its delicacy, the entire garment is handsewn, a process that underscores its fragility and intimacy.

By embedding references to Lynch’s cinematic language, the collar reflects the film’s obsession with surfaces and illusions: glamour edged with unease, beauty caught in the headlights. The use of reclaimed fur complicates ideas of luxury, situating the garment within a narrative of reuse, distortion, and transformation — echoing Lost Highway’s blurred identities and shifting realities