The Irish players at London Fashion Week

Fast making a name for his avant garde menswear, Hackney-based Dublin designer Alan Taylor has a window in Selfridges as part of the store's Bright Young Things initiative.

A fashion graduate of the National College of Art and Design in 2010, Taylor worked with Simone Rocha for three seasons before starting his own label at the end of 2011. His innovative use of tweeds from Magee in Donegal has attracted the attention of many key publications and the past six months have seen interest in his work soar. “I like the integration of contemporary and quite weird menswear using heritage fabrics,” he says of his abstract silhouettes with their slight Japanese slant. His deconstruction of conventional shapes has roots in his love of woodwork and construction at school.

“I loved how things are made and put together and really only discovered fashion in my core year at NCAD,” he says.

From Bray, Co Wicklow, Leanne Keogh will be starting a three-month internship with the designer Richard Nichol in London next month having graduated from NCAD this summer.

She has worked with Nicoll before while a student. “I started at the bottom shadowing Izabella Doyle, another Irish girl who has been working with him for years and who generated my love of pattern cutting,” she says.

Keogh has already had a three-week placement at Burberry in July, but prefers the hands-on aspect of working with Nichol to the more corporate atmosphere in Burberry.

She is also interviewing for a part-time position teaching pattern cutting to earn some money.

She says she loves the “busyness” of London and the fact that it has so many more fashion opportunities for young designers than her native Dublin does.