Once worn twice lived

FASHION:Síona Ryan has swapped London for Dublin - now she wants you to swap like for like, at a fashion fund-raiser tomorrow

WHEN MUSIC INDUSTRY player Síona Ryan began packing up her life to come home after 15 years in London, she looked at her heaving wardrobe and knew something had to give. Friends and charity shops were the first beneficiaries of her purge, but she decided to sell "a few key pieces" to her favourite vintage store.

"My mantra was 'must not buy anything', because the idea was to get rid of things, not accumulate more. But of course almost immediately I saw this incredible dress," she sighs. "I was hoping it would look terrible when I tried it on, so I wouldn't buy it, but of course it fit perfectly. I remember standing there, looking at myself in the mirror saying 'must not buy anything' when the owner of the shop, who could see my anguish, picked up a pair of Gina shoes from my pile of stuff and said: 'Swapsies?' "

Ryan's reply was "absolutely swapsies" and the germ of the idea for Swap Till You Drop - "one woman's premenstrual purchase is another woman's pièce de resistance" - was born. "It was the most brilliant moment," she remembers. "I felt I had made a friend rather than had a business exchange and I left on such a high, it was better than any shopping buzz I'd ever had."

Originally from Greystones, Co Wicklow, Ryan studied fashion in NCAD but took a detour in her late teens when she became a hostess at the Pod nightclub in Dublin. She made headlines briefly when Prince played at the club in 1995 and reportedly took a shine to her. "The truth is, nothing happened," she says, slightly embarrassed. "How could you have a relationship with a man who didn't have a name?"

It was shortly after this that she left for London, starting as "the bitch on the door" at the Ministry of Sound nightclub. "It was quite a hardcore job," she says. "You really were judging people on their wardrobes . . . you knew people who had made an effort were going to make sure they had a good time." After proving herself on the door, she moved into other areas, including sponsorship and international events, eventually settling in the club's record company, where she worked in marketing and development.

In 2002 she set up her own business managing artists and representing labels. "Lots of niche acts were coming out of America at the time and I wanted to be the London-based person to support them when they came over first."

She will never forget having lunch with a friend who ran a small label and wanted her to hear a band from Las Vegas who had been touting themselves around American labels, with little success. "He played me four tracks by The Killers, including Somebody Told Meand Mr Brightsideand I lost my mind," she says. "I was sitting there saying, 'You have to be kidding me, you don't really have this act?' I got my friend to drop everything else he was doing and I dropped most of what I did to work with them."

When she met them they were "four quiet guys who didn't know what was about to hit them", she says. "I'd never been so sure about anything, I knew they'd be huge." The band kept her busy for a few years when she started her own label and more recently moved to Atlantic Records as marketing director.

She came home two years ago to care for her mother, who had been diagnosed with motor neurone disease, an incurable neurological condition. She died earlier this year.

Swap Till You Drop will raise money for the Irish Motor Neurone Disease Association (IMNDA), which supports people with the disease, their carers and families. The idea is that women can inject fresh fashion blood into their wardrobes without spending a cent - apart from the €15 donation to the IMNDA. "My mother was my style icon," she says. "Half my wardrobe she either gave or bought me. I'm still wearing her clothes now, so it feels fitting to give the money raised to the association."

The event features "speed swapping" (all sizes welcome) and a Tunnel of Luck where, for another charity donation, participants will emerge made-over or clutching random fashion booty. Irish designers such as Deborah Veale are involved and the host is Johnny Blue Eyes, a London-based designer and stylist who has worked with the Scissor Sisters and Lady Gaga.

"Even if you haven't suffered personally, with all the economic misery, it doesn't feel right to be spending too much. So you can have a fun afternoon and find fabulous additions to your wardrobe without any of the usual guilt," says Ryan. "It's exactly the kind of thing I would want to go to myself. Now I just have to find someone to swap my stuff for me while I am running around doing the organising."

Swap Till You Drop is on November 7th in the Workman's Club on Wellington Quay, Dublin 2. Tickets from Ticketmaster and Queen and Kazumi hair salons in Dublin. swaptillyoudrop.ie