Cleo trades on timeless wool and linen

TradeNames: Classic Celtic clothes, in natural fabrics, never go out of fashion. Rose Doyle reports on the decades-old Cleo store

Cleo has been a moving, fondly regarded landmark in the area between Trinity College and St Stephen's Green for the best part of 70 years.

It has been the place to go for uniquely designed clothing made in natural fibres. The wools and linens used are Irish, and the designs are mainly drawn from Ireland's past.

Kitty Joyce was born to Cleo. Her mother, Kathleen Ryan, was its founder and only begetter and Kitty's destiny, as an only child, was an almost foregone conclusion. She spent some time nursing but the lure was strong and today, at 74 just slightly older than the company, Kitty Joyce can look happily back on a lifetime of passion and commitment to "wearable artworks" and satisfied customers.

With the youngest of her six children, Sarah, she runs the business with the indispensable help of Maureen Lewis, "a super person".

Cleo sells the work of craftspeople from all over the country; sweaters with designs based on the entrance and backstones at Newgrange, hand-made hats of all descriptions, felt jackets and sculptures, replicas of men's evening cloaks from the 19th century, and silver jewellery. Wearable art indeed, and hugely individual.

The great, good and beautiful have dressed themselves in Cleo for decades but Kitty is not giving names away. Prevailed upon she reveals that Dior was a customer in the l950s, and that Perry Ellis also came calling.

The world well knows that stars of the stage, screen and catwalk have gone and go there but Kitty's not for turning - the customers' privacy is sacrosanct.

Kitty is a natural storyteller, beginning at the beginning and joyfully digressing through the streets and history of 20th century Dublin.

The beginning was in l912 when her mother Kathleen came to Dublin from Tipperary. She was apprenticed in Switzers, then moved to Cathcarts in Ranelagh and then opened her own business in Molesworth Street.

"She had two milliners working for her," Kitty says. "At that time Dublin was the second city of the empire so there would have been good trading with colonels and their ladies and a lot of posting of hats in special paper so they didn't become affected by mildew when crossing the equator."

When Kathleen married Bryan Ryan, a Spirit Grocer with premises in Mountjoy Street and Abercorn Street, she stopped working. "That was the pattern at the time," Kitty says. "In the 1930s the business began to go down: in America they were jumping off skyscrapers. My father moved us from Mountjoy Street to Abercorn Street to concentrate things there. But things got worse, so in l936 my mother started Cleo at 10 South Anne Street. That's where it was until l950, a tiny shop with a little basement.

Calling it Cleo had to do with economics - the name was painted over the door, so she kept it. She sold separates - skirts, tops, little jackets. She had a very good maker called Mrs Lyons and did for individuals and what were known as awkward sizes.

When Bryan died in l944, the Abercorn Street premises had to be sold and Kathleen rented the top floor of Findlaters in Rathmines for herself and her daughter to live in.

"It was a huge area," Kitty says. "She took in about 12 lodgers, all of them characters. She was a fabulous woman. Every morning she would clean out their rooms, empty the grates and set the fires for when they came home in evenings. Then she would head for Cleo."

When change came in Cleo it was to do with a lodger, "a man whose soul needed to work in the unspoiled countryside in the summer". Kathleen Ryan asked this lodger to keep an eye out for any especially good knitters or spinners - and so came to know Maggie Dirane of Kilronan on Inis Mor. "Maggie and her daughter Dymphna were wonderful and did a lot of original Aran patterns," Kitty says. "She also invented the crios hat we sell to this day."

In l950 Cleo moved to a basement in Molesworth Street. "It turned out to be a fabulous position," Kitty says, "near to the Hibernian Hotel. My mother had built up a pool of knitters, some extremely good ones in Donegal as well, and was still selling separates. As the war came to an end it was as if America discovered Ireland and there was an explosion of tourism. My mother could hardly cope with the surge in business between May and September - she was getting on and becoming tired."

Kitty helped in the summer and, in between, studied nursing and midwifery.

"But I gave it up and decided to go into the business because my mother was falling asunder and she'd done a great deal for me. Within six weeks I was having a love affair with it. I'm still having a love affair with it. Those were wonderful years in Ireland; the country was fresh then. Then CTT and Bord Bia and the rest came along and organised everything and took the simplicity out of it and didn't contribute much to small people. We had wonderful times in Molesworth Street - customers are still coming from those years. They were terribly exciting times - people would queue on the wooden steps to the basement and shout for things they'd seen and wanted to buy. The Aran wasn't done to death then and anoraks and ski clothing weren't worn so much, so woollens were used as outer garments."

In l961 Kitty met Tom Joyce at a conference in the RDS; they fell in love and married. Tom is 86 now, preparing for a trip to Alaska, and Kitty still thinks he's "wonderful".

Kathleen Ryan died, too young, in l964. Through the 60s, 70s and even into the 80s Cleo used the likes of The Weaver's Shed in Kilmainham, for their fabrics, and master tailors such as Austin Lendaro, to make suits and coats.

"There was much more space for individuality of design and make then," Kitty says, "now there's the worship of the technological mode. There's more work for everyone,

of course, and you can't quarrel with jobs!"

In the early 70s Cleo moved, for a short two years, to Dawson Street. "Those were hard times in Ireland but we survived," Kitty says. "We moved here in the mid-70s. This building had been in retail use by Maureen O'Hara's mother and aunt - they would have sold couture to every lord and lady in the country. We bought blind; the place was too big for our needs, and we weren't sure we'd ever sell a thing here. But it gradually came together, I stopped grieving for Molesworth Street and like it here now!"

A second Cleo, opened in Kenmare in l985, is these days owned and run by Kitty and Tom Joyce's middle daughter, Helen. "She's wonderful at retailing and loves Kerry," Kitty says.

Sarah joined the company after she'd taken a BA in Maynooth. "We work fine together, the two of us and Maureen," Kitty says. "I've been taken up with this business all of my life and, though Cleo is here to stay,there are no dynasties involved. The family members know they don't have to continue when I'm no longer on this earth."