Meditation helped him process his PTSD and trauma – now he shares its benefits at US$15,000 retreats in Ibiza, Spain, and via free OPO app

When Chris Connors began to study meditation, it was his ‘secret world’. He learned it from Buddhist monks and spent time in Indian meditation and yoga retreats

Today, the Irishman shares its benefits at exclusive retreats and via a free app that anyone can use to immerse themselves in meditation and reap its benefits

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Chris Connors meditates in Ibiza, Spain. As well as running expensive retreats there for executives, the former fashion entrepreneur has developed a free app called OPO to share the benefits of meditation with more people. Photo: Chris Connors

Published: 4:15pm, 28 Jan 2023

Irish fashion entrepreneur Chris Connors was on fire in the late ’90s – in 1997, he founded award-winning London fashion label Uniform, which was stocked in the trendiest boutiques worldwide.

Overnight, however, his world changed. His partner died suddenly from meningitis and, without him, Connors could not go on. “We were on a trajectory and his death tore it apart.”

He sold the label and continued to work as a consultant in the fashion world, for conglomerates LVMH and Kering, and big brands such as Nike, Prada, Selfridges, Maison Martin Margiela, Vivienne Westwood and Net-a-Porter. But he had a nagging feeling something was missing.

Privately he began to study meditation. At the time, it was not as readily accepted as it is today. “People just wouldn’t understand it; they either thought it was mind-altering or religious. It became my secret world. I was running a parallel life; no one knew what I was doing,” says Connors.

While still pursuing a high-octane job in fashion, Connors decided to go back to the roots of meditation. Photo: Chris Connors

He realised he had been storing up trauma without properly addressing it.

“Growing up 18 years in Belfast, during the Troubles [the violent civil conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted three decades until 1998], having experienced what I experienced, I realised I actually had very active PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder],” he says.