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A Night of Firsts for Standing Ground

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By Paul McLauchlan

It was a night of firsts for Standing Ground. It was the designer Michael Stewart’s debut on the Paris Haute Couture Week schedule for Fall-Winter 2026. It was his first official haute couture collection, though his labour-intensive and painstakingly crafted work has long resonated with the tradition – not least before you count that he sells exclusively to private clients. It was the Irish designer’s first appearance on the runway since February 2024, when he showed a collection that underscored his sleight of hand. In that time, Stewart picked up the €200,000 Savoir-Faire Prize at the LVMH Prize in 2025, and found a new studio space on the Strand in London.

On Monday evening at the Irish Embassy, Stewart was back with a graceful procession of eveningwear that evoked the serenity of ancient monuments. Each exit was direct in its simplicity. Stewart’s ethereal beings were corseted, their slender silhouettes encased in deadstock velvet and silk jersey, with intricate beadwork tracing lines across their bodies. In an unconventional colour palette, where sorbet contrasts with vermillion, peaty browns and stone grey, like the landscapes he grew up around in County Clare, pose a counterpoint to highlighter orange and fluorescent pink. He loosened corseted shapes with voluminous ball gown skirts and a pale yellow sack dress. The final exit, worn by a celestial Kristen McMenamy, paid homage to his roots featuring the handwork of Irish lacemakers. Dating back to the early 1800s, Carrickmacross lace tradition, unlike needlepoint or bobbin lace, is finished by appliquéing fine net onto organza with delicate motifs like flowers secured with careful stitching. Over 20 lacemakers spent 9 months developing the dress. It would take one lace maker 5 years to make.

“I don’t want something that’s traditionally beautiful,” said Stewart backstage at the show. “I want it to have something else and that’s where you find a new beauty – that’s what I’m most interested in.”

How are you feeling after your Paris debut?

I feel good, relieved, happy. I can’t wait to know what happened out there [on the runway]. I’m excited to see how everything looks. I’m a perfectionist so I want to know right away. 

 

How did you approach texture?

[These] are techniques that I’ve been working on for quite some time. There’s something nice about finding a technique and pushing it forward and developing it further and further. You shouldn’t feel the need to move on so quickly, because there’s so much richness when you start working on something, and we shouldn’t feel pressure as designers to abandon everything and come up with something new each season. There’s so much wealth in what we do that we can continue to develop. I think that’s what a career in fashion is: to explore and to develop. 

 

How is your work evolving?

There’s a purity within my work and that rigour and complexity is something that I’ve always wanted to develop further. I always want to perfect it and get better each time. 

I’ve become more confident and less restrictive in my work. When you build your skills and gain confidence, you become a little bolder. I wanted to express the release and tension of the corestry and the antidote to that. 

 

Could you tell me more about the Carrickmacross lace look?

The lace dress was handmade in Ireland. I developed the work over the last year and it involved 9 months of making the lace. As I was showing couture, I wanted to show what Irish craft can be and what it can offer. I wanted to enrich the heritage and the craft skills in Ireland and bring them to a stage that I feel they deserve to be in. In total, we had 26 hands on this and 4,000 hours of work. I hand drew the motif and we prepared it [in London] before sending it to Ireland to be made. It’s a special piece and it expresses what modern handcraft can be, and how we can marry the two together. 

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