Designs on you

The Design Platform in Clifden - one of Europe's westernmost high-fashion outlets - specialises in judiciously selected clothes for women, with wide appeal and a cool, chic bohemian air

'THE DUBLINERS come in August and start their winter buying, and the Dublin boutiques are waiting for them, but they come back from the west well started," says Treena Sweeney with a smile. She is the owner, with her husband, John, of the Station House development in Clifden. She is referring to Design Platform, their boutique beside the former railway station. The shop - the Co Galway town's first fashion store - celebrates its 10th birthday this year. "Before it opened it was off to Galway for fashion. Now Galway comes to us," she says. "We get holidaymakers with time on their hands and money."

They recruited their buyer Carolanne Joyce to "put the shop together". She brought an artistic and creative spirit that she had nurtured as a set designer for Druid theatre company. Starting big, she secured top international and Irish designers such as Paul Costelloe and Lainey Keogh for one of Europe's westernmost outlets.

Glamorous fashion shows were staged in a former weaving factory that belonged to Millars of Clifden, with the models surrounded by disused machinery.

Before long Design Platform acquired a reputation for cool clothes, judiciously selected with wide appeal and a certain chic bohemian air. Style-conscious Dubliners returned from their west-of-Ireland holidays spreading the word.

Today there is also a branch at Marriott Johnstown House Hotel & Spa, in Enfield, Co Meath, which is patronised by hip young customers from Dublin and Kildare, and the famous Millars shop is also now tucked into the Sweeney portfolio. Buyer Rachel Walsh has transformed that landmark shop, too, and given it a fresh Swedish look against which to sell smart country tweeds, knits, crystal, throws and jewellery.

Two buyers, Ann Sheridan and Sharon Griffin, manage Design Platform in Enfield and Clifden and are constantly on the alert for new European labels with which to tempt their customers.

Both buyers are live wires - zany dressers who encourage their customers to treat clothes as fun and try everything on, the way they do on their buying trips. Both are great advertisements for what they select and have a particular interest in finding clothes to flatter "real women". They will always have individual customers in mind, as well as allowing for others, when earmarking new lines.

"We don't buy small sizes. We have no size six, only a few eights; we go from 10 to 18."

The shop, with its white wooden flooring and walls, comfortable fitting rooms and sofas, offers all sorts of interesting, often arty, labels mostly sourced from France, Italy, Spain and Denmark, at three buying levels.

A handsome black equestrian jacket with a bustle from the French Bleu Blanc Rouge is probably the most expensive item, at €850, but "somebody always comes in and buys it". The shop is the biggest stockist in Ireland of Oska, the German linen range, and customers love Lilith from France, Noa Noa (their black-and-white polka-dot raincoat sold out this summer) and Marouka, a mother-and-daughter team that produces softly structured casual clothes with flattering fits.

The current season's vogue for the equestrian look has been well interpreted here, where customers can identify with its flattering jackets, puff skirts and easy-to-wear items such as sleeveless parkas, long-belted knits worn with high boots and mufflers. Lots of different textures, such as leather-look waxed cotton, add to the mix.

"We want," says Sharon Griffin, "everybody to enjoy the clothes, try them on, give them a go and then get that light-bulb feeling."