Fashion Forward

Sonya Lennon is a whirlwind of creativity and positivity. The fashion designer, social entrepreneur, tv presenter, activist and a mum of teenage twins, speaks to Jennifer Stevens about creativity and surviving challenges.

Sonya Lennon is possibly best known these days for being one half of the Lennon Courtney label, which is sold in Dunnes Stores. Being a fashion designer in a pandemic was not easy and, at the beginning, the future of the business she runs with friend Brendan Courtney was looking unsure. 

“How were the last 15 months? Honestly, it's been up and down. It has had its challenges. Fashion was a difficult place to find yourself in a pandemic, when most people were wearing loungewear and tracksuit pants... All of a sudden, people were buying pyjamas, sheets, knickers, socks, blankets and kids wear. To meet that demand, Dunnes Stores had to make the difficult decision to put some brands dark, while they service the real needs of the Irish people.

“For about five weeks, we didn't even exist. It's one of those things. I always said throughout this pandemic, you should have a t-shirt that says ‘the global pandemic is not about you’. We just had to sit tight.”

For Sonya, creativity is the answer to pretty much any problem. “It’s how I deal with obstacles and challenges? You waft around the obstacle rather than attempt to knock it down. And even with all the uncertainty that Covid 19 brought personally and professionally, Sonya never lost sight of her positivity. 

“You know, it wasn't terrifying, and I'll tell you why, because I know we've had lots and lots of business challenges before. Actually for me, as a glass-half-full girl, challenges are an opportunity to rethink the why and the what and the how. I'm like, ‘okay, how can we do it now and how can we do it even better?’ I think that kind of entrepreneurial thing that runs through you is constantly having to react. Nobody has ever paid my holiday money, nobody has ever said, ‘there you go, off you go and have two weeks holiday’. You know?”

The new Lennon Courtney collection launched in May to great fanfare and Sonya was delighted with the reaction.  

“We are really ambitious for the brand, and we're not afraid to say that. We're growing internationally. We ship all over the world. Our UK audience is expanding monthly. We've always believed that what we do is not at a local proposition. Women all over the world can wear our clothes and feel empowered and feel strong and feel a sense of fun in their power. It's the marriage of form and fit and feel, it's really important to us.”

It could have been easy for Sonya and Brendan to pivot the label and offer a collection of loungewear that would fly off the shelves at a time like this, but the integrity of the brand is something hugely important for them. 

“For us, what's important is that anything that we do has the signature of Lennon Courtney. I think that signature is very strong. For us, it might have been easy to launch a line of loungewear, but that's not us. We would much rather do our version of sports luxe, make a woman feel elegant and powerful and strong but always comfortable because we know that there's power in that.”

Fashion and clothes have thrilled Sonya from an early age. “My mum loved clothes. She made clothes - she made her own wedding dress. She was into amateur dramatics, so she made clothes for the stage. There was always a sense of the power of clothes in the house. When I was a young girl, I remember getting really feverish and tingle-ish watching fashion TV. I was like something possessed afterwards. I’d have to go and create to sort of vent having got this huge inspiration. 

“My mum was also a transatlantic air hostess so she used to come back with these pieces of clothing that nobody had seen yet on this side of the ocean. I was the first kid who had leg warmers, all this cool stuff from the states. I got very excited about people getting excited about what I wore. It wasn’t that I felt smug or superior about it. I got a kind of a thrill from it. People were saying wow, where did you get that? It’s a kind of infectious joy that comes from feeling empowered by how you look. It ripples out from you.”

She finds inspiration everywhere she says. “It’s coming to you at all angles. The great thing about creativity is that the more you become comfortable with it and tap into it, the more open you are to stimulation from the most unusual places. It’s a mindset. I would liken it to confidence. The more you feed it, the more it grows.”

Creativity she believes starts with action. “A big myth about motivation and achievement, is that you know when it comes. You won’t know when it comes. You have to crank up that engine yourself. Whatever form of creativity you take, you just dive in. You have to recognise it isn’t ever going to be perfect. It’s going to be even less perfect at the beginning. But the more you give to it, the more comfortable and proficient you get at the foundations. Once the foundations are in place, you can begin to go off-piste and do things that are not in the rule book.”

“You just have to get on with it. It’s the least sexy message, you could possibly give. But the truth is that most things that end in success have a background in hard work, tenacity and endurance.”

Sonya and Brendan have been working together since the autumn of 2008, which is almost 13 years of a professional partnership. Being apart over the last 15 months has been tricky. 

“Well, we were apart while everybody was apart, and we were working virtually. We speak everyday anyway so we felt connected, but it was very challenging trying to pick fabrics and understand how a garment feels when you can’t touch it. It was really difficult, but the team were amazing and we pulled through. Dunne’s were amazing as well, in terms of putting safety of everybody first, customers and staff.”

Along with all her business commitments, Sonya is also mum to teenage twins which meant home schooling and all that goes with that in a pandemic. In true to Sonya positive form, she relished the time as a family. 

“It's been nice. Just hanging out, eating together, enjoying each other's company for the most part. Not 100 per cent, all the time, because we're not crazy. Dave, my husband, took on a new job in April last year as the president of IADT. To watch him thrive has been wonderful. He loves it and he's brilliant at it. He's really flexing his leadership muscle. I just think that's amazing.”

You would imagine with so much going on that Sonya wouldn’t have room for any new projects but herself and Brendan decided to go back to college this year too. 

“We're both doing a Master’s in Business Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in IADT. I love it because neither of us did a primary degree. We went back to study under the recognition of prior learning program and hit the ground running. I've always been a silent nerd. I love it, love it, love it. It's been really challenging, but really interesting.”

Sonya is doing all of this alongside her work with Lift Ireland which she co-founded and is all about carving out space to think, to reflect, think about your own character, how you're leading yourself and others. She does that hand in hand with running Dress for Success Dublin which she founded ten years ago. It’s a charity which promotes the economic independence of women by supporting them with the clothes, skills and confidence to succeed at interviews and land the job.

“Dress for Success was my first baby, really. That was my first foray into organisation building and creating something from nothing. Dress For Success has impacted everybody who has crossed its path. Not just clients but the volunteers, the staff and it gave me the ability to go on and build other organisations that I wouldn't have had that confidence to do if I hadn't had Dress For Success. It’s our 10-year anniversary soon and we’re about to undergo a really exciting new phase.”

Surely a fashion label, a charity, a leadership organisation, returning to college and being mum to two teens is enough but it’s not. Sonya is also renovating her house and has had to move out for a little while.

“My home is a hole in the ground at the moment. The last time I looked there was a digger where my kitchen used to be. I’m excited about it. I've been trying to push this rock up the hill for about four years now, so it’s been a long time coming but it's hugely exciting. I think it's fair to say we have a newfound respect for the fact that we live in the centre of town. We live in the North Strand, and we made a decision to stay here. We looked at other properties and we were going to move but we love it here. It's our community, we're embedded here and we're living outside of it now. A long way outside of it and we can't wait to get back.”