Penneys from Heaven

FASHION:Fashion has never shone so much and cost so little, as evidenced by Penneys' latest razzle-dazzle, rock'n'roll collection

HARD-CORE GLITTER and shine and a lot of rock attitude mark this party season. Studs and sequins are everywhere in kaleidoscopic colours (see Tommy Hilfiger, for instance) with silver-studded bags, studded shoes (Christian Louboutin) and spiked hair adding to the general razzle dazzle of the display. With so much black leather around this winter, it’s like Liberace with punk overtones. At Warehouse, its “little” black dresses laden with chains, studs, sequins and jet have prices in inverse proportion to their weight.

Never has fashion shone so much and cost so little, as illustrated here by these sparklers from Penneys that snapshot the current trends, such as the glitzy military jacket, the striped sequinned dresses, or the “boulder” shoulder tops. At London fashion week recently, many leading fashion editors were sporting silver or midnight blue sequinned skirts or jackets for daywear, and the vogue for flashy jackets is even spreading to menswear, a trend that might take a little longer to light up.

If there’s a lot of sparkle in Penneys clothes this season, it’s no surprise. Discount retailers are booming in these straitened times and Penneys (or Primark) is getting so fast at following catwalk trends at basement prices that it has been called Pradamark in the UK.

Its popular success (witness the crowds queuing for the opening of the company’s latest outlet in London’s Wood Green last week) is powering an unstoppable march into other markets.

Having started in Ireland in 1969 with one store, the company is 40 years old this year. With annual sales having increased by 20 per cent, it is selling more clothes than Marks Spencer. Despite continuing protests from War on Want about manufacturing conditions in Bangladesh (the company says it is reforming its practices), the discount chain now boasts 191 stores spread across Ireland, the UK, Spain, Germany, Portugal and the Netherlands. Its first store in Belgium, in Liege, opens in December, and another will open in Frankfurt at the end of this month.

In the meantime, a silver dress for €21, a jacket for €31 and an off-the-shoulder top for €19 are evidence of why it draws in the crowds, with prices that can make a trendy outfit for the most cash-strapped followers of fashion fun. Affordable and accessible? Most certainly. Ethical and sustainable? Perhaps not.

dmcquillan@irishtimes.com