Robyn Lynch has teamed up with Guinness for her latest collaboration, marking 25 years of the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin. To celebrate the milestone, Guinness commissioned Lynch to design a new uniform for its staff.

The new uniforms, which take inspiration from traditional workwear, are constructed from denim and finished with garment-dyed and laser-etched detailing. The pieces are deeply rooted in Irish craft, with subtle touches such as the Guinness harp appearing as a recurring motif throughout, as well as the aprons being screen printed using a gradient technique, reflecting the cascading brown-to-black transformation of a freshly poured pint of Guinness.

Just before the official launch, we caught up with Robyn Lynch to get the lowdown on this uniquely Irish collaboration.

Barry Pierce: How did this collaboration first come about?
Robyn Lynch: I was contacted by Rosie and Greg from Hens Teeth, who had been appointed by Guinness to find a designer for the Storehouse uniforms. They recommended me, and when the email came through I was genuinely excited because it felt like a project that made complete sense for me.

BP: Where did you begin with your designs? What were your references?
RL: I started in the Guinness Archive and then did my own deep dive. I always lean on primary research for my collections, and a lot of my references often trace back to family. For workwear, that naturally led me to looking at my dad’s bakery uniforms over the years, as well as old Guinness footage.
What I wanted was for the uniform to reflect what the Storehouse actually is. It is an educational space where you get a sense of the process and the craft. It felt right that the uniforms leaned into that tactile, functional, workwear language rather than polished hospitality attire. From there, the design followed the function.

BP: Did Guinness let you have free rein with the uniforms or did they have some requirements that the final pieces needed to have?
RL: It was a really open dialogue, with feedback involving staff and the wider team. We started with practical considerations, looking at the pain points from the current uniforms, and built from there. For me, it was important not to just design something on CAD and hand it over. I wanted the production to hold the same integrity as my own brand. The t-shirts are high quality cotton with a boxy fit, and the workwear incorporates multiple textile processes: garment dyeing, screen printing, laser etching, and enzyme washing. The quality is exactly what I would put into my own collections.

BP: You’ve previously designed the staff uniforms for V&A East, what do you think it is about your aesthetic that lends itself so well to workwear?
RL: I think it is partly the practicality rooted in menswear, and partly that both V&A East and Guinness felt connected to my world. The V&A was close to our studio, and it felt like something meaningful arriving in the neighbourhood. Guinness is such an iconic Irish brand, which aligns naturally with my own grounding and identity. Having the opportunity to design for places with that kind of cultural weight feels very natural to my practice.

BP: I have to ask, which pub in London actually does the best pint of Guinness?
RL: Auld Shillelagh in Stoke Newington. No question.