She has created beautiful bespoke dresses for some of Ireland’s most famous faces, but today, designer Helen Cody is talking wills – and specifically how your will can help others after you’ve gone.

It may seem like a maudlin topic, especially now when the world has enough misery already due to Covid, but it doesn’t have to be depressing at all insists Helen, who is an ambassador for ARC Cancer Support.

“In sickness or in health, making a will is a really sensible and important thing to do.” Helen is also a supporter of My Legacy Month 2020, an initiative that encourages people to leave a gift to charity.

“Leaving something in your will, no matter how small, to an organisation that will help other people after you’re gone, is a wonderful thing to do.”

Although Helen is in rude health currently, she recalls that it was the shock diagnosis of bilateral breast cancer in January 2018, that made her get her ‘affairs’ in order.

“Ironically, I wrote a will very soon after my diagnosis, just before I went into the operating theatre for a six-and-a-half-hour operation.

“I didn’t say it to anybody at the time, and it was completely irrational and illogical, but I remember thinking, ‘I’m going to die today in the theatre. Something’s going to happen and I’m not going to survive this’. I had never considered writing a will before and I just thought, ‘I’m married to this beautiful man, I don’t want to leave anything to chance, I don’t want to leave my affairs in a mess, I don’t want it to be any more painful for him than it has to be if anything should happen to me.

“It’s certainly a mind-focuser when you’re confronted by such a frightening diagnosis. It makes you think about the things that matter.”

The beautiful man she is referring to is husband, architect Rory Murphy, whom she married at Dublin’s City Hall, just eight days before her surgery. Helen had an unusual choice of best man – or best men - on her big day, Harry and Joe, her twin Shih Tzu, Jack Russell cross-breed dogs.

“They gave me away,” she says. “My lovely Papa passed away in 2014 and I just couldn’t have had anyone else. My dogs are now 10… we’ve been through an awful lot together. They are 100 per cent my little babies. I couldn’t have imagined them not being part of our day.”

So, Rory is an animal lover?

“He didn’t know he was,” she laughs. “But now he’s madder about them that I am.

“My dogs have been with me through thick and thin. When I was ill, they were amazing. Dogs are very uplifting.”

It was through a work project that Helen met Rory.

“I was doing a costume for a TV commercial and he had designed the house that we were shooting in,” she remembers. “The owner of the house introduced us and I thought he was very attractive.

“I had been looking for someone to do something with my shed so I could work from home. We got talking and we were just instantly very smitten with each other. And eight years later, nothing has changed,” she smiles.

Helen can’t sing the praises of ARC highly enough and credits the charity with getting her through the treatment regime that followed her surgery.

“I was on round four of chemotherapy,” she recalls. “And I told my oncologist that I didn’t want to do it anymore, I couldn’t get through it and I was going to take my chances and quit treatment.

“My immune system was massively compromised – my white cell count was on the floor – I had no energy and I really didn’t care what happened to me at that point.

“She replied by telling me that I was going to do several things that day and top of the list was to make an appointment with ARC for psychological help.

“The help I got from them changed everything, in particular, my attitude.

“Also, Rory was watching me go through all of it and was devastatingly upset. He said that he used to walk his bicycle to work, rather than ride it, to try and process everything and work out how to be strong for me. He also had psychological support from ARC and went to several sessions.

“I was so incredibly grateful for what they did for me that I became an ambassador for the charity and since I finished my treatment, I’ve raised more than €100,000. 

“I’m so grateful for what they did for me that I would work with them on anything.When they asked me if I would get involved with My Legacy Month 2020, I didn’t hesitate. It’s an incredible initiative that supports 70 charities.”

There’s no doubt that Helen has had more than her fair share of trauma in her life.

She worked with French Vogue in Paris and with designer Azzedine Alaïa. 

Helen has also lived and worked in London and New York, where she developed her skills as a leading stylist for fashion magazines, music videos, TV commercials and celebrities. She has dressed some of Ireland’s biggest names including Mary McAleese in the 1997 presidential election, Ali Hewson and actress Amy and the delicate pale pink, feathered couture dress she made for Ballon d’Or finalist Stephanie Roche in 2014 made headlines around the world.

It all sounds very glamorous, but 24 hours before Stephanie made her stunning appearance, Helen’s beloved father Des passed away. Another devastating life blow was the death of her newborn baby son, Ethan in 2003.

“Somebody said to me yesterday, ‘Would you not write a book?’” says Helen. “And I said I wish I could write – it would be a humdinger – but thankfully I’m not a writer.”

As well as Helen’s beautiful couture designs, her gorgeous home has also graced the pages of magazines.

“Rory very much ‘put manners’ on this house,” she reveals. “I had owned it for a long time before we got married then Rory had these amazing ideas. It’s taken us quite a while to get here but he’s done an amazing job.”

When I suggest to Helen that her life sounds incredibly exciting and glamorous, she roars: “You must be joking. I live in the tiniest bubble. My studio is 1km from my house. My triangle is … go to the park in the morning to walk the dogs, pop into work, pick up groceries, walk the dogs again, cook dinner, watch TV and draw. We don’t have a crazy social life, we’re not madly social and never were, even before the pandemic.

“I do miss dinner parties, though. I love cooking and I love entertaining. We’re pretty low-key. My clients may have exciting lives, but we don’t.”

Like everyone else, Helen has been affected by Covid-19.

“Work is very difficult at the moment, but I’m lucky that if I have to I can travel to my studio because it’s so near to where I live. Couture design a very niche thing to do, but I have wonderful clients and going into work is a pure joy.

“I was very grateful to be able to keep my studio going through my chemo and my staff were amazing. We kind of limped through the year, but we got there.

“I’m spending most of my time at home and have been accepted onto an RHA drawing course. It’s a mentored course and I’m spending most of my time drawing. I haven’t drawn since art college and I’m really enjoying it. It’s like my mental yoga,” she laughs. “I hope to have an exhibition.

“This pandemic will end and we will get over it however diseases such as cancer are a constant, never-ending threat. 

“That’s why I think Legacy Month is so important. Now more than ever, I think that leaving a legacy gift is something we should all consider. We never know when our friends and family will need to lean on the support of a charity.”

My Legacy Month 2020 takes place throughout the month of November wherein My Legacy and its 70 member charities ask the public to consider leaving a legacy gift in their will to a charity they care about. Legacy gifts left to charities are tax-free.See MyLegacy.ie for info. The website also has lots of useful information about making or amending a will and leaving a legacy gift to charity.