Amy Huberman was a fan of her first brand. Now this Irish designer is going bolder

Sarah Plunkett is back with Mná, a new Irish label that is sharper, sexier and more personalMná's Peg blouse in gold and black leopard print €248. Photograph: Eimear Lynch Mon Jul 13 2026 - 06:00 • 3 MIN READRaunchy, sexy, powerful and Irish – that’s the core of a new fashion brand called Mná from Manchester-based Sarah Plunkett, the Irish co-founder and former brand director of Queens of Archive, the vintage-inspired occasionwear brand launched in 2020 that quickly became one of the UK’s most recognised womenswear brands. Despite Queens of Archive’s success, with a pop-up in Arnotts the following year and fans that included actress Amy Huberman and presenter Laura Whitmore, Plunkett wanted to produce something that resonated more with her own personal style and Irish heritage, hence the idea of Mná. She calls it “refined and rebellious”.“I am 47 and I wanted to appeal to my age group who are sexy, cool and a bit rock ‘n roll. We are supposed to be put in a drawer and not come out [at this age], so I have injected more sex appeal in this new collection,” she says. “It’s for a woman who is fierce and powerful and whose style transcends trends,” she adds, pointing out 1980s-inspired design details like shoulder pads, and 1970s disco dresses. Pieces are named after Irish women including her own grand mother Tessie, Dolores O’Riordan, Grace O’Malley and Imelda May.Fabrics include snakeskin, tiger print, black satin, black and gold leopard print and black velvet. The Erin snakeskin skirt and jacket drew from David Lynch’s black comedy Wild at Heart, the 1990s movie featuring Nicolas Cage as Sailor Ripley, and the snakeskin jacket worn on his release from prison. The skirt can be styled with long black gloves, boots and top.Peg - the long, black and gold metallic leopard print dress - is designed to be either buttoned up or unbuttoned, while the Tessie trio of mini, midi skirt and boulder-shoulder jacket come in a Japanese black liquid satin that in photographs looks like leather. Kitty is a tiger-print dress and top, while Imelda comes in black velvet with a gold trim. There’s a homage to Sinéad O’Connor and her famous song Troy, “which meant a lot to me” says Plunkett. The lyrics from that song “I will rise, I will return” feature on a black top. Other T-shirts are emblazoned with words like ‘Mná’ and ‘It’s Herself’. “I design the whole thing from start to finish, so it begins and ends with me,” she says. “What keeps me going is the reaction on social media. When we launched on Instagram, we got 150,000 views and Imelda May reposted, so there is a lot of interest already.” Everything is fully lined, tailored, and shoulders are often padded for structure. “The brand is very personal – it’s me and informed by my Irish roots, my experiences working in fashion and my reimagined vintage-inspired silhouettes for the modern woman," she says, adding that “consumers are increasingly seeking authenticity, craftsmanship and emotional connection from the brands they choose to wear.”Mná's Erin snakeskin jacket (€457). Photograph: Eimear Lynch Mná's Roisin mini dress, €425. Photograph: Eimear Lynch Mná T-Shirt, €54. Photograph: Eimear Lynch Mná T-shirt, €54. Photograph: Eimear Lynch Plunkett is from Tallaght, Dublin. After leaving Our Lady’s School in Terenure, she went travelling. Her mother worked in fashion retail, “but I preferred the creative side, so I became a window dresser in Arnotts – now called visual merchandising and taught in technical colleges”.She later moved to London, where she built a career in visual merchandising, becoming head of visual merchandising for AllSaints in east London, with responsibility for the UK and EU. “It was interesting to adapt to different customers’ tastes, so I learnt a lot and, working with a team, opened a number of stores for them in the US,” she says.She later spent a year heading up visual merchandising for Value Retail at Bicester Village in Oxfordshire, before leaving to set up Queens of Archive.She is married to a Mancunian working in computer security. The pair bonded over a shared love of music and love of the city. Her ultimate ambition is to move back home to Ireland. Mná will launch across two “carefully curated” drops - the first is on August 1st, with the second following in mid-August. Prices start from €54 for T-shirts up to €467 for jackets. the-mna.comLocation photography in Dublin by Eimear Lynch; model: Tinna BergsIN THIS SECTION