Clothes line

Compiled by DEIRDRE McQUILLAN

Material girls

Home dressmakers, fashion students and interior designers will welcome the opening of the Cloth Shop at 5 Johnson's Place (beside Adamsons) on June 7th. Owner Deirdre Noonan will be specialising in high-end dress, curtain and upholstery fabrics and trimmings, following on from the success of her shop in Limerick, which opened two years ago. Expect to find everything from Italian embroidered cottons, specialist silks, Tuscan wools and jersey, linen from Antrim and tweeds from Kerry Woollen Mills. Noonan, who originally trained in fine art, spent 20 years as a lighting camerawoman, before changing careers and setting up shop. She will be joined by her daughter Sinead Martin who studied fashion at LSAD and they will be selling everything from thimbles at 50 cent to Nobilis household fabric direct from the Rue Bonaparte in Paris at €340 a metre. theclothshop.ie

Boutique of the week

Clodagh Shorten had honed her buying and retails skills working for Monica John for 18 years when she opened Samui in Cork in 2001.

It’s Cork’s premier boutique, drawing well heeled customers from the city and beyond. “We cater for casual, for office and special occasion wear,” says Shorten, who freshens up her labels regularly.

Stalwarts are higher-end labels with a modern edge such as Moncler, Isabel Marant, Roland Mouret, Rick Owens, Helmut Lang and Peter Pilotto, while Girbaud's dresses and jackets are bought with working women in mind. Currently Lucy Downes's Sphere One cashmere "grandfather" cardigans worn over jeans are proving a hit, as are classic but quirky dresses and little knits from Parosh in Italy. Accessories include shoes by Camilla Skovgaard and more sporty numbers by Candice Cooper. See samuifashions.com

Samui, 17 Drawbridge Street, Cork

Two decades for Dublin vintage store

Celebrating 20 years in business next month is Gail Kinsella of Jenny Vander, Dublin’s long-standing vintage boutique with an international reputation. Blondie is a regular whenever she’s in Dublin and it’s a favourite haunt of other high-fliers such as Keira Knightley, who wore a white silk chiffon dress from the shop to the Dublin premiere of the 2003 movie, Pirates of the Caribbean. Keen vintage-hunters, particularly from the US, love the finish and detail of many pieces now hard to get from the 1920s and 30s and the extensive stock of coloured rhinestone and pearl jewellery mainly from the 50s. “We are really selective about what we stock and it really works,” says Kinsella, who remembers an unforgettable Dior couture coat beaded in grey, copper, chocolate, black and silver she bought at auction in Sothebys and later sold to a Dublin woman for €2,200.