Family favourites
Get Cairenn’s traditional style by choosing tactile fabrics and classic pieces
“When my first delivery of stock arrived, I was so petrified it would be robbed, that I slept with it in my bedroom”
You have to be so resilient, take nothing personally, and you have to be able to get up the next day and do it all over again.”
And that’s where she realises the years of sales were an advantage. “Even though I didn’t have the time of my life in sales, it definitely stood to me,” she says. Cairenn does admit that then when she got her first order from Avoca, for two hundred dresses, she was terrified.
Her range of dresses for little girls, under the label Cairenn Foy, went on the market in 2016, and is now sold in several childrenswear boutiques, as well as in Avoca and Brown Thomas — 18 stores altogether. The dresses are extremely pretty —100pc cotton in sweet colours, and with traditional touches like broderie anglaise. The collection has now expanded to include skirts and cardigans.
“When my first delivery of stock arrived, I was so petrified it would be robbed, that I slept with it in my bedroom,” Cairenn laughs. She says the range is made in Europe, and she emphasizes that it’s made by adults who receive fair wages. That was a conscious
decision. “It is a business and I have to make money, but I want it to be done properly,” she says.
Not content with what she has achieved to date, she’s planning to go into communion dresses. She also intends to go to New York in November, and is currently trying to set up appointments with buyers there. She’s been shortlisted for several awards, including the prestigious Drapers Best New Brand 2018, which will be announced at an event in London on September 12.
“My husband is coming with me,” Cairenn says. “He’s been incredibly supportive. He reassures me when I worry about failing — ‘So it fails; it’s cheaper than an MBA’ — and he’s right, it’s been an amazing learning curve.”
Paddy is quite the high achiever, too; as well as his practice, he’s a Fine Gael councillor, which is like a full-time second job. “I was hoodwinked,” Cairenn says. “I was in the labour ward just before having Ava, and he was on his phone canvassing.”
Fortunately, they had already bought their beautiful home before they got involved in so much productivity between their work situations and their family.
It wasn’t actually very beautiful when they bought it, in 2010. “A surveyor told us to walk away from it, it was in such bad condition,” Cairenn reveals.
Despite this advice, they bought it. Then their architect told them that the existing extension could last 30 years, or it could collapse the next day; needless to mention, they thought it best to knock it and build a new one. They also had to rewire and replumb. “And it was infested with rodents,” Cairenn volunteers.
Planning and building took a year-and-ahalf, and over the last few years Cairenn has gradually been restoring the house in a way that respects its period. “All the fireplaces downstairs and the cornicing had been ripped out, which was a shame,” she says.
The open-plan kitchen/dining/living area is new, as are the children’s bedrooms above it. They put in new bathrooms as well, and kept the original reception rooms the same — Cairenn uses one for stock and one, while it is decorated as a living room, doubles as an office.
There’s also a gorgeous garden, which was the most recent part of the renovation. “It took me ages to get around to it,” she says.
The wonder is that she got around to it at all. This is a very busy household — three kids under five; one a newborn who doesn’t sleep. “I have a lot of energy to begin with,” Cairenn says. “If I can do it without sleep, imagine if I had sleep? There would be no stopping me. I’m quite driven. I am competitive, but only with myself. I don’t like doing anything half-assed. At the end of the day, I’m not curing cancer, I have to keep perspective.”
“I was hoodwinked. I was in the labour ward just before having Ava, and he was on his phone canvassing”