“IT HAS BEEN FROCKS, frocks and more frocks for the past three weeks,” announces Louise Kennedy, fresh in from Florence where she has been working with manufacturers on prototypes for her winter 2010 collection. A few hours later she set off for Slovenia to work on her new crystal collection which will premiere at Showcase in January. Then it’s on to New Delhi in India for her annual six-week collaboration with the artisan craftsmen who bejewel and decorate her clothes so lavishly and in such detail. In the meantime, her outlet shop at Kildare Village, which she describes as “the most sophisticated method of clearing out my warehouse,” has been performing even better than expected since its October opening, attracting a new clientele to the Kennedy label.

BEAUTY: WOW! AM I IN DUBLIN? in Arnotts, in Henry Street? Walking into the new beauty hall it certainly has the glamour of some of the more swanky department stores abroad. But this is indeed our own dear Arnotts, where school uniforms, multi-way armchairs and difficult-to-find baking accoutrements live happily under the same roof as fashion and fragrances. The front of the store has been totally reinvented, with the beauty department now a real destination rather than somewhere you walked through to get to another part of the shop. As for the brands, all your old friends are still here, along with some new and exclusive lines.