Straight and narrow

“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.

There is, she tells me, already a waiting list for her much vaunted new bridal room due to open in January in Merrion Square. She has just completed sketches for the 26 bespoke dresses that will make up the collection. Targeting the wedding market is a natural move for the designer and one she thinks “will be the making of Merrion Square. I hope that when people think bridal they will think Merrion Square.”

Her current winter collection, shown here, is a mix of well mannered suits, shapely double-faced crepe or cashmere coats and day dresses. The lower-priced jersey dresses at €495 have been very successful, and a contrast to the lavishly embellished evening wear, some of which, like a black beaded jacket, takes days to make and has formidable price tags to match. There’s a lot of black – she herself was dressed in a head-to-toe black ensemble – with less daywear adornment.

“This season is about the dress – we are offering seven jersey options over a range of eight colours – we call them desk to dinner dresses and it’s not a big investment. And dresses will still be key for spring,” she says. While opulent fur collared coats still figure, the cocoon shapes that can be worn with a short dress to work, with jeans, or equally to a winter wedding, are more hardworking, low key alternatives. dmcquillan@irishtimes.com