Deirdre McQuillan's style file
LACY LADY Helen Cody is to stage a major fashion show next Thursday in the Warehouse on Barrow Street, Dublin 4. The show is by invitation only, and guests will be able to see and purchase from an all-lace couture collection fashioned from old and new lace - everything from antique bedspreads and ecclesiastical vestments to exquisite silk lingerie tulles, doilies and Victorian collars. "It's the result of years of foraging in markets and redesigning tiny fragments of decaying textiles to make bustles, or remaking Victorian chemises. It's more about how textiles work than about fashion," Cody says. Some of the items are outstandingly beautiful. One long black lace dress has a sparkling silk underlay, while another, reworked from a crochet bedspread into a fitted coat, will be shown over a nude tulle dress decorated with grosgrain ribbons. A chandelier top made from pieces of Waterford crystal tinkles when it's worn. One dress sums up the whole collection, being composed of a patchwork of different laces and crochets in what Cody describes as "an aged palette" of colours. Prices are from €300 to €2,500 for these unique pieces. For further information, contact Helen Cody at 086-2605374 .
LANDS' END GOES IRISH The new Lands' End catalogue is full of simple classics such as safari jackets, blazers and long-line jackets, all made in Irish linen. It also includes a number of good-looking linen shirts in plain or stripes, with long or short sleeves, in white, rose pink, flax or ruby red. These styles don't date. And there's plenty more in the catalogue that includes menswear, underwear and accessories. Having ordered from Lands' End, I can vouch for its efficiency, but a word of caution: make sure you get the sizing right, and check conversion charts before ordering because everything is sold in standard US sizes. www.landsend.com.
CAMP IT UP Camper shoes are the kind of footwear that put a spring in your step, and a smile on your face. Their "twins" range, for example (pictured right), has prints based on the menu of the company's new hotel in Barcelona, while the roped and rubber-soled slips-ons with hessian uppers have little side pockets. Apart from being zany and colourful, the footwear is functional and comfortable, and not just about clever styling. The brand has just opened its first shop in Ireland on Wicklow Street, Dublin 2, where the shoes are displayed on a great wooden central table under enormous wooden lampshades made in Majorca, the company's headquarters.
TALENT SEARCH Fashion Fringe, a competition to recruit undiscovered fashion-design talent in the UK and Ireland, has signed up Tom Ford as its honorary chairman for the next two years. The competition is now in its third year, and an Irish entrant, Mary Donoghue, was among the four finalists last September. The competition is open to British and Irish participants over the age of 18 (see www.fashionfringe.co.uk) and the closing date for applications, to include 10-25 drawings of a capsule spring/summer 2007 collection, is this Friday, April 28th. From a dozen semi-finalists, four will be chosen to present their work at London Fashion Week in September. The winner's collection will be sold by www.yoox.com.
MISS MISSONI Though barely 23 years old, Margherita Missoni (right) is a young woman with a mission: to sell a new fragrance range that bears her image and the name of her famous family. She is the granddaughter of Tao and Rosita Missoni, who founded the Italian knitwear company in l953. Margherita attended her first fashion show when she was just two weeks old, and though her ambition is to be an actress, her role as roving ambassador for Missoni is one she plays very well. In Dublin for the first time recently, to promote the fragrance, she said that it captured the essence of all the things she loves, such as amber, chocolate, persimmon and bergamot. Apart from studying method acting in New York, where she now lives, Missoni has also studied philosophy in Milan and Spanish in Barcelona. Although she can wear whatever she wants from Missoni, her favourite haunts are souvenir shops at airports. The Missoni fragrance, stocked in Brown Thomas in Ireland, starts at €47 for a body lotion and goes up to €300 for pure perfume.