As an avid fan of Sinead Gorey, since day one (I have shamelessly been following her for 3 plus years), this AW24 season she defo pulled it outta the bag with a collection close to our hearts at Broke Mag; the British Teenage Experience. Think St. Trinian’s slash Mean Girls slash Wild Child.
Being our favourite collection of the season, the show was high production, high energy and made us feel extremely high on dopamine. The set design, in the most famous gay club G-A-Y and Hevean, transported us to the clerb, where a dingy basement floor and a makeshift corner shop are reminiscent of our teenage selves. The room was engulfed in a nostalgic noughties playlist, featuring remixed mash-ups of the Sugababes, Lily Allen, and The Prodigy.
Sinead channelled schoolgirl archetypes, she pinpointed the unique sensibilities and style that she experienced in her upbringing (and guuurrl so did we). It elevated the messy and chaotic nature of the girl who spends her time between the classroom, local corner shop and bus stop.
Exploring English youth culture in her designs, Sinead continues to train her lens to the looks of the 2000s – as someone who grew up with that era in full force. So that’s why this season she collaborated with one of the era’s defining labels Ed Hardy, offering a fitted throwback to the diamanté-encrusted and tattooed getups that Sinead and her girl gang rocked on their precious weekends.
Sinead says “Back in the day, different schools had different tartan checks, that’s how you knew who went to what school.” However, something elevated this collection ever further; rather than following the regular dress code or leaning into school rivalries, this cocksure student persona splices every shade of tartan into patchwork bodices. She matched them with down-filled skirts next to hair scrunchies and dog-eared hems – but she ain’t a teacher’s pet…
Kicking out against the school dress policy with DIY innovation, the girls portrayed treat their ties as a makeshift styling device, morphing them into argyle-print wraparounds or ribboning dresses. The classic prep-school blazers were vandalised with punk badges and turned into knife-pleated, detention-worthy mini-skirts. Sinead presented the iconic tit-slit top from Mean Girls which was reworked with contrasting double layers and a new rave palette for a right ‘ol Bri’ish take on Gorey-esque customisation.
She took the tools from her time – silicone spikes and seamless knits, laddered tighter, bras stuffed with fag packets and a restless desire to be anywhere – the Sinead Gorey girl is an Effy Stonem-coded teen, deep in her imagination and in the throes of growing up. With clumsy makeup attempts and bathroom gossiping, the persona was an avid transportation tactic into our pasts… as we pray to be taken back to those simpler times of the iPod touch. That said, the accessories were the cherries on top, mini iPods and MP3s designed as hair clips, pre-party rollers in the girl’s hair and pen-drawn legs from everyday classroom boredom.
In attendance at this season’s showcase were pop icon Katy B, presenter Zeze Millz, and model Lottie Moss, with the show being closed by one of London’s hottest drag queens and fashion icon Bimini Bon Boulash.
Overall, if we take a peek inside Sinead’s head for AW24, we find memories of rollerblading on the front drive or playing Snake on a Nokia brick. Then these being subbed out for pie-eyed evenings at her first rave, and her bedroom now plastered with the Prodigy’s Keith Flint, not the Spice Girls seen from her SS24 collection.