Fashion designer and stylist Helen Cody has just installed a new semi-mature tree in her Dublin 8 courtyard. She’s also growing a new pop-up business selling rare vintage and pre-loved fashion.
Photography: Fionn McCann, originally shot for Image magazine
Fashion designer Helen Cody has paid tribute to her mother, whom she lost last year, by planting a tree in her honour in her garden.
It’s a beautiful, living, breathing gesture. She just didn’t bank on the level of logistics required to make it happen.
She “very innocently” thought that all she’d have to do was pick out a tree, and that it would magically appear in the courtyard space.
She chose a three-metre-high elm that is semi-mature.
The 26-year-old tree arrived on a flatbed truck that was reversed into the lane that runs to the back of the property.
The truck had a crane attachment that driver Ian Kelly used to hoist it up and into position, before bedding it in.
She bought it in Gardenworld in Rathcoole. It’s one of the key additions she’s made to her beautifully layered home that is replete with art, books and fashion details.
She’s also adding climbing hydrangea to the space.
She lives in Dublin 8 with her architect husband, Rory Murphy, now chief operating officer at Reddy Architecture, who helped her reimagine the redbrick terraced house.
Overlooking the Grand Canal, the living room and primary bedroom both open out to the garden.
“When you have a small house, a courtyard extends the house out and adds a different perspective,” she says.
“It makes the house feel longer and connects the two together. It opens up the entire house front to back.”
The layout means that double doors open out from the primary bedroom to the exterior, while large sliding glass doors lead out from the living room, which is down a level from the front of the house.
“I absolutely adore it,” she says of the French-inspired parquet floors, while on the walls, her own work and her art collection, pieces she has assembled over the years.
The designer, who has been known for her artful, one-off pieces, has also stopped making couture.
“It is beautifully expensive and very time-consuming,” she says.
Instead, she’s putting all that knowledge to good use by following a love she’s had all her creative life, vintage and pre-loved second-hand clothing.
Since last October, she’s been quietly buying all over Europe and the collection will be revealed this coming Saturday at her atelier at 21 Greenmount Industrial Estate, accessed from Harold’s Cross Road.
“I have always done this,” she says.
"There are things I found in Paris: silk, jet beading, lace, and archival pieces of tapestry. I’m just adding to it and building on it.
"When I find a beautiful thing, I work on it and restore it to make it nicer. It’s a form of couture that feels relevant in the world. “
"It frees me up to make one or two pieces," she explains.
"It will be slightly experimental, slightly more design-based and will feel really comfortable."
All her talents will still be on show. Expect the pieces to include some hand-finishing, possible hand-dyed silk linings, and Victorian embellishments, along with vintage ribbons and crystals.
It was planted last Friday, and she and Rory toasted its arrival with an evening barbecue.
Helen Cody’s The Atelier launches this Saturday, June 20th, from 11 am to 3 pm. The monthly pop-up of rare vintage and pre-loved fashion takes place at her studio at 21 Greenmount Industrial Estate, Greenmount Avenue, Harold’s Cross, Dublin 12
