Live from Cartier - How We Produced Live From Abu Dhabi: A Fashion Show Celebrating East Meets West

This week, we are back in Dublin at the Cartier Espace at Paul Sheeran Jewellers for something more candid than a recap. It’s a post game analysis of Live from Abu Dhabi, the largest showcase of Irish design in the Middle East to date, and a case study in what it actually takes to execute “luxury” outside your home market. Ashley is joined live by four women who made the project real: Lesley Keane (Ayu Cosmetics), Jess Colivet, Anne O'Shea, and Jenny Johnston (Azure Communications), covering beauty, production, styling, invites and print. The conversation is intimate, funny and specific in the best way, less about the highlight reel and more about naming the mechanics.

Funding came in stages, sponsors were sequenced, and the show was built to hold a luxury standard abroad.

Every seat had a purpose. Guest outreach ran like a campaign, not an invite list.

Backstage was a full operations problem: 40 looks, limited models, fast changes and a house turned into a working production floor.

The moments that almost went wrong are the proof of craft having 300 magazine covers reprinted overnight, a lighting issue caught just before the room filled.

Day 2 was a desert shoot with Irish creatives and brands, the kind of asset most productions could never afford to build on their own.