Wardrobe mistresses

SUMMER STYLE:Proof that you don't have to be a fashion lemming to look good, these stylish women prefer clothes that reflect their personalities, writes ROSEMARY MACCABE

SHEANA KEANE, TV PRESENTER

Sheana Keane answers the door to her Dublin 4 home wearing a pair of straight-legged jeans and a cashmere cardigan.

Keane’s life is that of a working mother. Handbags, notes from RTÉ for The Afternoon Show, which she co-presents, and a copy of Elle’s accessories edition vie for space on the table with children’s toys and Penguin Classics mugs – the detritus of modern life. As you might expect, Keane’s personal wardrobe is tailored to her life: “For me it’s comfort first and fashion second,” she says. “That’s why I keep it very simple and pared down.

“I tend to go for clean lines, simplicity – nothing too patterned. It’s different for work – being in RTÉ makes me push the boat out a bit and forces me to experiment a bit more, which is great, because so many things I put on I would never have dreamed of buying for myself.”

So how does someone whose shopping is done for them do their own shopping?

“I pick up pieces as I go,” says Keane. “I can’t stand focused shopping and I do a lot of shopping online.”

Despite her protestations, Keane is very focused when it comes to investment pieces. She has a cost-per-wear mentality and considers purchases carefully before making the leap.

“I sit down and read fashion magazines – like when Elle brings out the autumn-winter supplement with catwalk details. I pick one key thing, one decent thing that I buy every year.

“I’ve really grown up and realised what I get wear out of. I have a pair of shoes on order at the moment, by Céline. They’re sandals and I know they are the kind of thing I’ll wear every day.”

Keane’s wardrobe is evidence of both her simple, pared-down look – full of basic, neutral tones and denims – and of her determination to buy quality, rather than quantity. She has an impressive array of cashmere sweaters and cardigans.

“I live in jeans and a cashmere cardigan or a cashmere jumper. Sphere One cashmere (designed by Lucy Downes) is amazing.”

Keane’s cashmere obsession is nothing new, at least not in her mind.

“I remember, years ago, being obsessed with women in twinsets, and the idea that when you grew up, that’s what you did – you became a mother and morphed into someone who wears twinsets and has a white picket fence. Thankfully, I grew out of that, but I still have an obsession with how certain clothes fall. I save every year to buy new cashmere, and I live in it,” she says, fingering a particularly well-worn navy cardigan. “I’ve had some jumpers for years, and I buy embroidery thread – which is great because it comes in every colour under the sun – and I darn up the armpits and the elbows and wherever else they go, and I wear them for years.”

JULIE FEENEY, MUSICIAN

Julie Feeney happily resides in an environment of disorganised chaos. In her home, CDs jostle for space with books – opera, cookery, politics – and random knick-knacks. Her kitchen doubles as storage space for her instruments; her bedroom is both her sleeping and her recording space; the livingroom of her Georgian apartment in Dublin 4 is both relaxing and stress-inducing. There are at least three mobile phones, all of which will ring at some point during our discussion.

Her style is an ode to eclecticism, and something that fits with her image. A collage of sorts from her appearances at the Meteor Music Awards, in black with a house-shaped headpiece; at the Choice Music Prize, like a liquorice allsort shimmering onstage; on The View in a ballgown composed entirely of paper – the score from her second album, Pages. Then there is the award-winning video to Impossibly Beautiful, in which Feeney achieves the supposedly unachievable – mastering blonde, brunette and red hairstyles.

Her everyday wardrobe is no different. “It becomes a question of, ‘when do you take the costume off?’ ” she says. “In my life, there’s no distinction between life and performance. This is all I do.” A lime green jacket from Karen Millen – “I love Karen Millen. Everything fits me, it just suits my shape so perfectly” – alongside a denim Miu Miu dress and, touchingly, her debs dress. “I had that made for me,” she says. “I just love the fabric.” It is made from a beautiful, deep, autumnal patterned fabric, with the tiniest silk buttons all the way up the back.

“I would say my wardrobe is completely diverse,” says Feeney, who pulls random items from her closet that neither match nor have anything in common with one another (“I’ll take this, and I love this . . . and I love red and this green is just gorgeous, and this . . .”).

“I’m very much somebody who wears something I feel at the time. I don’t feel obliged to make a statement.”

That said, Feeney admits that versatility is key, and she is reluctant to appear, particularly on terrestrial television, more than once in the same outfit. “Even though I’m not Lady Gaga, in that insanely famous way, I still want to keep things fresh, so if I do two TV interviews, I wouldn’t want to wear the same thing. I have to be conscious and think, ‘I wore this one here, but did I wear this before?’ ”

How does she shop? “I’m terrible for getting waylaid,” she admits. “I can just be going down the street and see something in a shop and go, ‘oh my God, I have to have that’. But when I don’t have much money, I stay away – I avert my eyes.”

So what items does Feeney view as fail-safes?

“I have loads of different black tops, and I have a lot of fitted jumper dresses, which are so versatile. And I always go for shape,” she says. “I love things that are fitted. I don’t own baggy things. I know what my body shape is and I know what suits it. I prefer items to be waisted. I go into a shop and the first thing I see is shape. Then colour. Colours that give me a nice, warm feeling, make me feel cosy.”

SINÉAD DOYLE, FASHION DESIGNER

Fashion designer Sinéad Doyle lives at home in Blanchardstown with her parents. The back shed is her studio space; clothing lines the walls and patterns and drawings are strewn everywhere. In the house, she has two bedrooms. She sleeps in one and the other, her childhood room, is where she keeps her clothes – in two wardrobes and strewn over bunkbeds – and her impressive collection of Star Trek paraphernalia. “I was the biggest Trekkie,” she says. “I won prizes for my Star Trek knowledge and I still go to the conventions.”

It seems an odd juxtaposition: fashion and science fiction. But Doyle is not a traditional womenswear designer, and the traditional, feminine “girly” fabrics and cuts are not what her label, or her wardrobe, are about.

“I studied menswear,” says Doyle. “So there are a lot of masculine influences in my wardrobe. I’m into tailoring – trousers, shirts – and everything’s quite fitted, even the more casual things such as jerseys, or looser items that can be belted.”

To avoid an overall androgynous style Doyle tempers the masculine influence with feminine touches. “I wear make-up, maybe strong lipstick, and I have boobs so it balances out,” she says with a laugh.

Does Doyle feel clothing says a lot about a person?

“I’m not quite sure,” she admits. There is a pause. “I’m not very girly so I avoid pink, but mostly I just dress for myself. I know that it depends a lot on who I’m with. If I’m with friends from school, who might be a little more conservative, I sometimes feel a bit out-there wearing more fashion-conscious things. But with friends from art college, I often feel quite dull. I’m neither one thing nor the other.”

What does Doyle think of Irish style generally?

“I think people in Ireland follow trends a bit too much, but it’s easy for me to say that because I always know quite far in advance what’s coming, and I tend to avoid things that are going to be gone too quickly,” she says.

“Irish style is quite conservative. I have loads of pieces in my wardrobe – such as city shorts and wedges – that I used to wear all the time in London, but in Dublin if I wear them I feel a bit self-conscious.”

From a business point of view, Doyle has noticed that Irish people obey certain trends when it comes to spending.

“In most stores and boutiques there’s a real mother-of-the-bride style, very much a dressy style. Irish women spend a lot of money on going-out clothes and eveningwear, but they’re very reluctant to spend on daywear.”

Doyle’s own spending is restricted not by a reluctance to spend on daywear, but by a strict budget she has set for herself – and by a desire to promote her label at every juncture. She is aware that she, the designer, is the face of the product.

“Usually I can only afford to wear my own stuff, and if I’m working and promoting myself, say in the Loft Market (in Dublin’s Powerscourt Centre), I always wear my own clothing – something easy like trousers and a shirt, or a skirt suit,” she says. “On the high street, I quite like Oasis, and stores that do tailored stuff. If I had the money, I would shop in Reiss all the time.”

Is she a considered shopper, or a smash ’n’ grab type?

“I’m definitely not an on-the-spot buyer,” she says. “Because I’m so aware of trends, I avoid them, and I think about what will work with what. But it’s mainly down to budget, so I have to think about what I’m buying, and why.”

How about influences? Separating personal and business, for Doyle, is a difficult task; the fashion she wears and the fashion she creates are the same, and dissecting her personal style often turns into a conversation about her label.

“A lot of my influences come from where I’ve been – say, working in London, on menswear,” she says. “I try to be aware of trends, although I don’t follow them, so I might include a nod to them, but when I’m working on a new collection, a lot of my influences come into my personal style.”