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Irish designer Orla Kiely founded her London-based fashion and lifestyle label 30 years ago with husband Dermott Rowan, building a brand now recognised across accessories, homeware and interiors in markets worldwide. The label’s landmark anniversary arrives as appetite for heritage brands, archival design and pattern-led interiors continues to shape both fashion and home categories.
Orla Kiely, who originates from Dublin and trained in print and textile design at the National College of Art before completing a master’s degree at London’s Royal College of Art, launched the brand as a small accessories collection. A breakthrough came in the mid-1990s with signature laminated handbags featuring simplified plant prints in bold colours.
The label expanded into homeware, furniture, stationery and broader lifestyle collections, earning an Honorary OBE in 2011 for Kiely’s contribution to fashion and attracting wearers including the Duchess of Cambridge and Alexa Chung.
Orla Kiely is best known for her signature Stem print
The Stem print as brand IP
At the centre of the brand’s commercial longevity sits the Stem print, designed in 2000 and now one of the most recognisable repeat patterns in British design. Originally drawn by hand and based on a rowan leaf, a nod to Dermott Rowan’s surname, the motif was refined digitally, where its form and symmetry became clearer. It has since appeared on everything from handbags and wallpaper to Tesco bags for life and Uniqlo collections.
The design team reworks the print each season through changes to colour, scale and adjacent motifs. “We should have called it Rowan Leaf,” Kiely has previously said. “It looks like it’s growing and people respond to that. And somehow, the balance, the density of the leaves, it just seems to work.”
Orla Kiely, launches her exhibition, Orla Kiely: A Life in Pattern, at the DCCI National Design & Craft Gallery in Kilkenny. Leon Farrell / Photocall Ireland
From retail to licensing
In September 2018, parent company Kiely Rowan entered voluntary liquidation, leading to the closure of its retail stores, however the home and design licensing business was unaffected and continued through distribution partners. In the years since, Orla Kiely has refocused around licensing, partnerships and direct-to-consumer channels.
That strategy has given the brand continued cultural visibility. In 2025, the Design & Crafts Council Ireland staged “Orla Kiely: A Life in Pattern” at the National Design and Craft Gallery in Kilkenny, the first dedicated retrospective of the designer’s career in Ireland. In June 2026, a new collection of art prints launched through a collaboration with King & McGaw.
“Many of the prints were inspired by a desire to create something simple, optimistic and enduring,” Kiely said. “Thirty years on, it’s incredibly rewarding to see them continue to find relevance in new homes and with new audiences.”
As the brand enters its fourth decade, the asset at the core of the business remains the same: a transferable visual language, led by the Stem, that moves across multiple categories. It feels as relevant and recognisable as it did on the day it was launched.