Oisín and Aoibhin Quinn chose the name Nubes for their store for two very different reasons. On one hand “Nubes” means “clouds” in Latin, which they happen to like a lot, but more importantly, it allowed them to create the hashtag #sendnubes, a cheeky riff on “send nudes.” “We don’t like to take ourselves too seriously,” says Aoibhin. “If there’s one thing that’s important to us, it’s that.” Their playfulness takes the edge off the painstakingly assembled utilitarian clothes they stock online, mostly slow-made shirts and jackets from one-man labels like Tender, Conkers and Dterioro. “What they make is expensive, for sure, but we believe it can be approachable and fun as well,” says Oisín.
Their informal, laid-back approach defines their relationships with these designers, too. Take expert shirtmaker Gonzalo Cobos Humera of Dterioro. Working out of his Madrid studio, he makes one-of-a-kind pieces from vintage natural fabrics and buttons finished with hand-sewn buttonholes. He first came across Nubes on Instagram and, after browsing their website, simply sent them an email to introduce himself. “Even though they had never heard of me,” says the designer, “they gave my work their honest attention and soon decided to give it a chance. There’s a lot of mutual trust between us. Above all, Oisín and Aoibhin are just genuinely kind people.”
I’m speaking with the husband-and-wife duo just as their lives have taken a radical new turn. After six years in Berlin, where they moved impulsively after booking a one-way flight, they now find themselves back in Ireland, without a house and staying with family. For the time being, Nubes exists as a stack of boxes — literally. Not that Oisín and Aoibhin aren’t used to running the store impromptu. During their time in Berlin, they would host occasional pop-ups or set up racks in their apartment in the Mitte neighborhood whenever someone made an appointment.
That adventure began with Frank Leder, another offbeat designer that Nubes stocks, known for his high-end reinterpretations of German workwear and folklore. “We came across his work when Nubes was a mere sapling, with barely a logo to its name. We were still thinking about what our first product should be,” Oisín and Aoibhin write on their blog. They were introduced to Leder through one of his models, whom they had met by chance at an event. “Frank invited us to his atelier, where we sat and talked for two hours. At one point he said, ‘Okay, what do you want to do?’” Aoibhin recalls. “We explained our idea for working on a shirt together, to which Frank agreed then and there.”
A result of personal connection and a bit of luck, the shirt — called “The Advocate” — is based on an old barrister shirt Oisín used to wear to work. It’s made from undyed 1960s German cotton bedsheets, one of Leder’s signature deadstock fabrics, and comes with both a classic pointed collar and a butterfly collar, which can be attached using antique studs sourced from England. “At different levels of court, you wear a different collar,” Oisín explains. “We thought it would be really cool to translate that into a single shirt you can wear in three different ways.” Leder agreed. “I found it very interesting to hear about this traditional attire,” he says, “and used the idea of a lawyer’s shirt to construct the pattern based on those in my studio.” Leder also came up with the idea of placing a woven label inside the pocket where the stud is kept, reading: “One stud in the pocket is better than two studs under the bed.”
The slightly nebulous nature of Nubes, existing in and out of boxes, somewhere between online and offline, has a down-to-earth explanation: both Oisín and Aoibhin work as full-time freelancers — he’s a lawyer, she’s a fashion copywriter. “Nubes doesn’t feel like work, in part because it isn’t, and in part because we just love it,” Oisín says. “We first met when we were very young, and when we crossed paths again about 17 years ago,” Aoibhin adds, “we were already talking about opening up a shop at some point in our lives. Our goal right now is to leave our jobs so the store can be our full-time work.”
The first step needed to make that happen is finding a space on Ireland’s West Coast, ideally in Skibbereen, an artistic village in the rugged and scenic West Cork region. “It’s definitely remote,” Oisín says, “but it’s also a kind of creative hub — full of musicians, potters and architects — and there’s a famous Saturday farmers’ market that draws people from all over the area.” With just 3,000 inhabitants, it’s a world apart from Berlin. “We look back fondly on our time there,” Aoibhin says, “but in a big city like that, it can be hard to experience human warmth or build and contribute to a close-knit community.”
Once a space is found — “we have our eye on a spot, but don’t want to jinx it” — it’s community-building they’re after with Nubes. They spend a lot of time cultivating a thoughtful online presence through their web shop, blog and even a Substack. Yet, they correctly assert there’s nothing quite like the brick-and-mortar experience of a clothing store. “We’re nostalgic for the idea of an old high street in a small town, where everyone knows each other and a variety of businesses sit close by,” Oisín says. As old-fashioned as that might sound, it aligns with a trend among forward-thinking boutiques that refuse to sell clothes online at all, like Ven. Space in New York and Elise in Leamington Spa, England.
But still, how will the local crowd in Skibbereen react to a $450 “Short-Sleeve Farmer Shirt” or $870 “Bog Jacket” from brands they’ve never heard of? “It’s all about trying to educate,” Oisín says. “We understand that not everyone can spend that amount of money straight away. But we do believe we can help people see that neither makers nor wearers benefit from cheap garments in the long run.”
Besides, Oisín and Aoibhin are in the game long enough to know the magic of good clothes. “It’s kind of like the wand in Harry Potter finding the wizard. We’ve seen it happen,” Oisín says. “We once did a Christmas market in Dublin where someone tried on a jacket that looked amazing on them. When they asked for the price, they said, ‘I’ve bought all my presents this year, you know.’ But I just knew they’d be back. Half an hour later, they were — and bought it.”
